Introduction: Lord Loomba

Rajinder Paul Loomba Esquire, CBE, having been created Baron Loomba, of Moor Park in the County of Hertfordshire, was introduced and took the oath, supported by Lord McNally and Lord Dholakia, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Introduction: Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Tariq Mahmood Ahmad Esquire, having been created Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon, of Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton, was introduced and took the oath, supported by Baroness Warsi and Lord Howard of Lympne, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Introduction: Lord Flight

Howard Emerson Flight Esquire, having been created Baron Flight, of Worcester in the County of Worcestershire, was introduced and took the oath, supported by Baroness O'Cathain and Lord Lamont of Lerwick, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Clerk of the Parliaments
	 — 
	Announcement of Successor

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I informed the House on 8 November of Michael Pownall's intention to retire from the Office of Clerk of the Parliaments with effect from Friday 15 April. A trawl for Michael Pownall's successor has now been held. There were four applicants, all of whom were interviewed by a board consisting of myself, the Lord Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers and the noble Baroness, Lady Fritchie, who is a former Civil Service Commissioner and Commissioner for Public Appointments. The unanimous recommendation of the board is that David Beamish should succeed Michael Pownall. I am sure your Lordships would wish to join me in congratulating David on his appointment. We will have an early opportunity to pay tribute to Michael Pownall's career in the House nearer to the date of his retirement.
	The board also considered applications for the post of Clerk Assistant, which will fall vacant on David Beamish's appointment as Clerk of the Parliaments. The board unanimously recommended that Edward Ollard should succeed David Beamish as Clerk Assistant. The Lord Speaker will move a Motion to appoint him to the post at the appropriate time.

Legislation
	 — 
	Question

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: To ask Her Majesty's Government what proposals they have to reduce the volume and complexity of new legislation.

Lord McNally: My Lords, the Government are committed to simplifying and improving the quality of legislation. We will improve quality by publishing in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny, where possible, and through post-legislative scrutiny. We have established a mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary criminal offences and introduced a one-in, one-out rule for regulations which impose costs on business or civil society.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply, but is he aware that we legislate at between 200 and 400 per cent the rate of any comparable country in Europe? Is he aware that the cumulative effect of making legislation at the rate of between 11,000 and 13,000 pages a year over the past 15 years has been a state of indigestion in this country that some might call citizen constipation, which has parlous consequences? If I cannot ask him for a moratorium for a year on all legislation to allow us to catch up and see to implementation, will he at least consider introducing a provision, as in the Charities Act 2006, requiring a report to Parliament within four to five years of enactment of legislation in order that Parliament can consider its effectiveness and take necessary measures?

Lord McNally: My Lords, I think there is general agreement around the House about the necessity to legislate less, but the problem is-and I have heard this throughout my time around Whitehall and Westminster-that although Oppositions have the absolute determination to legislate less, when they get into government they find that every department has at least two or three, or perhaps even more, good ideas they want to legislate on. Indeed, every Secretary of State who followed my noble friend's advice would start reading in the gossip columns that he was for the chop, because he was a do-nothing Secretary of State. It is a dilemma, but my noble friend is pointing us in the right direction.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Did I overhear the noble Lord correctly, when he said that the Government were committed to improving the quality of legislation by pre-legislative scrutiny? Tired people make tired laws. How does he reconcile that with what the Government are doing today?

Lord McNally: Because sometimes, my Lords, the procedures of the House do not allow for non-tired Lords, but I cannot believe that a piece of legislation the total number of hours for which it has been scrutinised by this House will, at some time tonight, exceed the total time for which it was scrutinised in the other place has been subject to any abuse whatever on this side of the Chamber.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, are there any plans, as there once were, to consolidate the mass of recent legislation on terrorism? That would be a great aid towards simplification.

Lord McNally: I cannot give an instant response but, as so often with the noble and learned Lord's interventions, it is a good suggestion, not least because I understand that some of the pieces of terrorism legislation passed over the past decade were never actually put into practice.

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve: Would the Minister consider recommending to his colleagues that departments of government receive a budget for drafting future legislation at a stage before it is known whether it will form part of the Queen's Speech, so that the good ideas may be more adequately translated into prose?

Lord McNally: Again, I will take that sound suggestion back. From my limited experience, if I had my time over again, I would become a parliamentary draftsman, because it seems to be a well protected trade.

Lord Grabiner: Does the Minister think that the quality of scrutiny of legislation would improve if we had an elected upper House?

Lord McNally: Undoubtedly, sir.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, when it comes to constitutional legislation, what lessons does my noble friend take from the fact that only 27 amendments to the United States constitution have been made in the past 200-plus years, two of those being prohibition and a reversal of prohibition? Will he take into account such lessons when bringing forward any legislation on House of Lords reform?

Lord McNally: Indeed, that is why I am very enthusiastic about the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny for a Bill, because it will give an ample opportunity for all sides and opinions to be heard.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, there are two parts to my question. First, the noble Lord talks passionately about the need for pre-legislative scrutiny, so why was the Bill before us today not subject to pre-legislative scrutiny? The Minister also talks about the need for less complex Bills to come before us and for pre-legislative scrutiny, yet we are told that this week a Bill with 400 clauses will come before the House of Commons. It is a Bill on the National Health Service that was not proposed in the manifesto of either party; and it was specifically stated in the coalition agreement that there would be no major Bill to reorganise the NHS. What is the rationale for that Bill?

Lord McNally: I thought that the Prime Minister explained that excellently on the "Today" programme this morning. It was a most impressive performance. One of the problems about the commitment to pre-legislative scrutiny is what happens in the first year of a radical and reforming Government. That is one of the things that we run against. A Government who are determined to hit the ground running, with radical reforms, are bound to run into some problems on this. I have explained where we are going on legislation, and we will make efforts to make sure that both Houses are fully involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny and-the point made by my noble friend-that there is the opportunity for both Houses of Parliament to take a second look, in the form of post-legislative scrutiny, to see whether we have got certain legislation right.

Post Offices
	 — 
	Question

Lord Naseby: To ask Her Majesty's Government how they will ensure a viable local network of post offices.

Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, we have made it clear that we are committed to the long-term future of the Post Office. We will provide £1.34 billion of funding for the Post Office over the next four years. This will enable the modernisation of the nationwide network of around 11,500 branches and the development of new revenue streams, longer opening hours and reduced queues. We are clear that there will be no programme of post office closures under this Government.

Lord Naseby: I thank my noble friend for that extremely encouraging Answer. However, is she aware that in 2010 nearly 1,000 sub-post offices were up for sale because they are unviable, and that hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses use these local post offices every day? In particular, 300,000 pensioners use the green giro. Can she make sure that this problem is addressed urgently and that within, I hope, the current Session, we will see some positive action in this area?

Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, I am glad you have given me an opportunity to address the point about the closure of post offices. Most, as you know, are privately owned businesses and it is inevitable and normal that there will be some changes in ownership. It is a condition of the £1.34 billion we have provided that the Post Office will continue to provide a network of at least 11,500 branches.
	The noble Lord's second question was about collecting pensions from post offices. This will continue. People will be able to use the Post Office card account to withdraw money from a basic or current account free of charge and, for a small proportion of them, by cheque.
	The noble Lord's third point was about small businesses using post offices. It is clear that we should keep post offices alive and well close to the people who need to use them, particularly people such as me who live in rural areas and villages, and small businesses. They provide an enormously good service and we are very happy to support them.

Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, does the Minister agree that "viable" can be interpreted as a public service that is available to members of the public who use it? Is she aware of the great difficulty that many people in rural areas have experienced because of the closure of local post offices, particularly young mothers with children who have to be pushed in a pram, and pensioners? Will she concentrate on the difficulties that these areas are experiencing?

Baroness Wilcox: That is always a worry and a difficulty, particularly, as my noble friend has pointed out, for young families. The Post Office Ltd network works hard to try to secure new ownership for a post office when it is going to close. As noble Lords will know, the access criteria specify that 99 per cent of the population should be within 3 miles of a post office, and in inner cities they should be within 1 mile of one. If the post office closes in an area like that, it causes hardship. Post Office Ltd is very keen to get the churn better handled. It is natural for someone who wants to open a post office to be fully enthusiastic. I have a goddaughter who has just opened one. She has a very young family herself, and is struggling and finding it difficult to keep the business running. She thought it would be much easier than this. When things are difficult like that, we need to give all the help that we can.

The Countess of Mar: Does the noble Baroness appreciate that some sub-post offices in rural areas also act as sorting offices? Last Christmas, I had reason to complain about the activities of a postman. I found it impossible to do so. I phoned a national number and was referred to the internet. On the internet they have someone called, I think, Sarah who will answer your questions, but she did not respond to mine. How can one speak to a person in a post office to file a complaint?

Baroness Wilcox: The noble Countess makes a valid point. We will certainly look into this.

Lord Myners: Will the Minister endorse the view that the Post Office should be able to obtain a banking licence in its own name, thereby allowing people to bank with an organisation that is universal in its coverage, that, unlike banks, is not closing branches, and, importantly, that is trusted?

Baroness Wilcox: The noble Lord knows this subject very well. I have a long note here on how complicated, expensive and difficult it is to set up one of these licences. We have looked at the idea of a state-backed post bank, but it would be simply unaffordable in the current financial climate.

The Lord Bishop of Wakefield: Will Her Majesty's Government give assurances that where a post office is threatened with closure, perhaps because it is part of a small shop, pressure will be put on Post Office Ltd to make sure that it works with community groups to find an alternative location, as is suggested by the notion of the big society?

Baroness Wilcox: As the right reverend Prelate will know, a Bill on the privatisation of the Royal Mail will come to the House on 25 January. Postal services will be discussed then, and it would be a good time to bring up the question again.

Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords-

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: Is the noble Baroness content that many post offices are now applying for licences to sell alcohol and displaying it on a wide scale immediately alongside the areas in which giro payments are made? Are the Government prepared to do something about it?

Baroness Wilcox: That is a very interesting question. I have not come across it before and will look into it. I can see where the noble Lord is coming from. Youngsters come in to buy sweeties et cetera and see alcohol very close to them. As with the big society, we will look to see what is going on.

Tourism
	 — 
	Question

Lord Addington: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support tourism throughout the regions of the United Kingdom, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics and other international sporting events.

Baroness Garden of Frognal: The Government are creating a new overseas marketing fund and a new tourism strategy in order to create a sustainable legacy for tourism from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and from other major events such as Her Majesty's diamond jubilee. The overseas campaign aims to deliver 1 million additional overseas visitors in each of the next four years and £2 billion in extra visitor spend.

Lord Addington: I thank my noble friend for that response. What structure is in place to encourage people who are attending events that may last several weeks to travel, for example, outwith and between matches in the international rugby union world cup, and to see other cultural events and sites around the country during that experience?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: My noble friend raises a very important issue to do with tourism. Major events give communities the opportunity to promote their regions on the world stage. VisitEngland is working with the regions to highlight our heritage and culture, as well as the wonders of the towns and countryside, and it is hoped that the major sporting events will give a boost to particular areas. People will have every encouragement and publicity to venture further afield.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree-I think that she does, because I have asked her before-that the arts and cultural sectors of the UK are an extremely important draw for tourists? Is she aware that Arts Council England is engaged, as a result of cuts to its funding, in a major review of its entire portfolio, and has made it fairly clear that at least some organisations that provide important artistic events across the country will cease to be funded in the next two to three years? What impact will that have on tourism?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: The noble Baroness is quite right; I agree with her once again that culture and the arts are vital. She will also remember that when the coalition Government came into office, they did not inherit the most favourable economic situation, and unfortunate cuts have had to be made in all sorts of areas. Certainly, support is available for the arts and heritage, and major funds are being set up to ensure that we do not lose the treasures of this country.

Lord Higgins: Does my noble friend agree that it is also very important to encourage tourism and sporting events after the Olympics? In that context, will she give an assurance that the Government will do all they can to ensure that an athletics track remains a permanent feature of the Olympic stadium, regardless of to whom it is sold?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: My noble friend will be aware that there are extensive plans to ensure that the legacy from the Olympics continues well into the future, and the facilities that have been set up specifically for the Olympics will be of great benefit as the years go by. The track will obviously be an important part of that.

Baroness Grey-Thompson: What consideration has the noble Baroness given to using the Games to ensure that disabled tourists have equal access to shops, attractions and hotel rooms, bearing in mind that disabled people have money to spend and that businesses not far away from here are blatantly ignoring current disability access legislation?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: I am concerned to hear the noble Baroness's last point. That is something that we would wish to investigate in great detail because, as she rightly says, all those attending the Olympic and Paralympic Games, particularly those who are disabled, will need additional resources and specific information about where appropriate accommodation is and what the events and venues are. Over the years, we have taken strides to ensure that our venues are fully accessible to those who suffer from a whole range of disabilities.

Baroness Billingham: The Question links sport with tourism. Does the Minister agree that both those activities would benefit enormously by having more light at the end of the day rather than at the beginning of the day? We return to that issue time and time again. She might also be well aware, because we have debated it here, that 82,000 new jobs would be provided in the tourism industry if that were enacted at a time when jobs are being lost from every sector of our country. How on earth can her Government refuse to consider this seriously at long last to enable those jobs to be provided-jobs that more than likely would go to young people and women, the very people who are more likely to lose their jobs in a recession?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: The noble Baroness will be aware that a Private Member's Bill on daylight saving is currently going through the other House. This issue comes up regularly and there seems to be growing enthusiasm for it. It is a matter for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and ultimately a matter that all parts of the United Kingdom need to subscribe to before we can change the system.

Lord Lee of Trafford: My Lords, the five destination management organisations in the north-west are at present significantly funded by the regional RDA. With the RDA being phased out and the development of the LEPs being patchy and embryonic, will my noble friend tell us what transitional plans the Government have to provide support for the DMOs during this period?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: I pay tribute to my noble friend's expertise in tourism and, indeed, to his commitment to the north-west. This region has a great many natural attractions. With a proactive strategy to encourage tourism, he will be aware that the DMOs are taking on tourism activities, and VisitEngland is actively helping to ensure continuity. The north-west might also consider applying to the regional growth fund, which is a fund of £1.4 billion and which will be open for tourism-related funding applications.

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the Commonwealth Games are coming to Glasgow in 2014. Can she give an assurance on behalf of the Government that this forward-looking tourism strategy will take into account the importance of that event not just for Glasgow and Scotland but for the whole of the United Kingdom, and that the Government will work with the Scottish Government to ensure that it is a success for the economy as well as for sport?

Baroness Garden of Frognal: I would sincerely hope so. The tourism strategy is currently at a far stage of development. It has not yet been announced but will be shortly, and I am quite sure that the Commonwealth Games will feature very strongly.

EU: External Action Service
	 — 
	Question

Lord Lamont of Lerwick: To ask Her Majesty's Government how many British embassies they intend to close as a result of the deployment of the European Union External Action Service.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, there are no plans for any British embassies to close as a result of the deployment of the European External Action Service. The European External Action Service is about supplementing and complementing, not replacing, national diplomatic services.

Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, accepting that part of our foreign policy is now governed by the Lisbon treaty, does my noble friend, with all his experience, really think that it is necessary and appropriate to have an EU diplomatic service with a budget starting at £400 million a year, rising to €3 billion a year, with 6,000 staff-114 of them are paid more than the Foreign Secretary-in 137 countries, including 49 in Burkina Faso, 46 in Barbados, 32 in the Dominican Republic and six in Vanuatu, which has a population of 250,000? If, as the Commission says, all this has been done on a neutral-cost basis, deploying resources from one area to another, does that not show that there is a massive opportunity for economy and cutting spending in the EU?

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is correct on that last point, but the global figure for personnel that I have is not 6,000 but 1,625, which is rather different from what he says. On the general question of the usefulness and worthwhile need for a combined diplomatic service, we take the view that this can help and, indeed, even save money in certain areas where combined efforts to deal with great international strategic issues are valuable. That is not every area. In some areas we want our own bilateral developments, but in some it is clearly more economic and effective to act together. We believe that this service will help, provided that it is carefully controlled, particularly on the cost side.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Will the Minister tell us what proportion of the figures rattled off by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, include Commission officials already in those posts who are busy trying to disburse the development programmes of the European Union? The noble Lord included some small developing countries, where I suspect that that is the case. Can the Minister give a little more specificity to his excellent point on the EAS being able to do certain things more effectively and economically than 27 member states each doing their own thing?

Lord Howell of Guildford: On the question of the global totals, it is a fact that a great deal of the personnel and cost diversion comes from existing activities being amalgamated under the new system. Of the 1,625 personnel whom I mentioned, 1,114 are existing personnel acting on external matters and will be brought together into one grouping, which we hope may save money. That is a sensible move, provided that costs are most carefully controlled. Will the noble Lord repeat his second question, as I have forgotten it?

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: I asked whether the Minister could follow up his excellent first answer, when he said that the EAS ought to be able to conduct certain forms of diplomatic activity collectively for the 27 member states more efficiently than the member states can do severally themselves and whether he had any suggestions. I suggested in a debate three months ago that things such as the analysis of the economy of the country where the post is could well be conducted in that way.

Lord Howell of Guildford: With respect to the noble Lord, the governing word is "ought". This is a new institution and it has to prove its worth. It will no doubt be subject to some elements of conducibility like any other new organisation. It will have to establish its worthwhileness. There are areas where, by combining with our neighbours and other European member states, we can do much more, but we have to move carefully. We cannot assume that it will be a positive in every area. In some areas we can clearly do things much better by ourselves.

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, do the Government agree that the European external service may well provide a great opportunity for UK science and industry to have projects, many of the most advanced of which are done across the EU? We really need an EU presence and promotion of these projects, which I believe should be an important part of the external service.

Lord Howell of Guildford: I very much hope so, but of course that applies to other nations and other areas of the world as well. We want close scientific links with our American friends and with the rising powers of Asia, as well as with our European Union neighbours. Certainly, this may help as far as our immediate neighbourhood is concerned.

Lord Tugendhat: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in Dar es Salaam, from which I have just returned, there is a Europe house, which contains the British high commission, the German embassy, the Dutch embassy, the European Commission office and the DfID office? Does he agree that that is an admirable example of effective co-operation and cost saving? Will he undertake to ensure that similar establishments are put into other similar capitals?

Lord Howell of Guildford: I hear what my noble friend says and hope that that will save money. As to the administration of diplomatic posts around the world and the role of the EAS posts, we must leave that to the Commission, but always within the strict framework that the budget is tight-in my view, it should be tighter still. If this is a worthwhile return and helps our national aims and diplomatic services, it is worth while pursuing.

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead: My Lords, does the Minister welcome the fact, as I do, that, under the EAS, development policies become a shared competence between the European Commission and the member states of the European Union? Furthermore, does he agree that, under the Lisbon treaty, EU policies such as development should complement and reinforce one another?

Lord Howell of Guildford: The Lisbon treaty is a fact and these are the aims under it. However, I emphasise, and I know that the noble Baroness with her experience will agree, that these are early days. It is an advance into a new area, where we are trying both to save money and to combine our efforts with our European member state neighbours in certain areas, but not all. We welcome this as far as it goes. Clearly, we need to see how this develops from here.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
	 — 
	Committee (9th Day)

Motion
	 Tabled by Lord McNally:
	That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord McNally I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on the Bill. In moving this Motion, it may be helpful to set out the Government's intention in relation to progress on the Bill; there has been a little recent comment in the press.
	The Government announced as long ago as July last year that there would be a referendum on 5 May to decide the system to elect Members of the House of Commons at the next general election. The Government also made clear our desire to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons at the same election. The Bill subsequently passed all its stages on the Floor of the House
	In this House, we are now on day nine of Committee on the Bill. Although it is right that this House undertakes proper and detailed scrutiny of the Bill, it is also right that the House deals with legislation in reasonable time. The Bill was introduced to your Lordships' House on 3 November, and began Committee on 30 November. The Opposition's approach has been consistently and deliberately slow. This time last week, the House debated the Bill for six hours, dealing with just two amendments. That is not good scrutiny; there is no precedent for moving so slowly. I have had many representations from noble Lords on all sides of the House in recent weeks who are concerned about the slow progress on the Bill. The Opposition have dragged their heels; they have had their fun; it is now time for this House to behave responsibly.
	For this House to stand in the way of a referendum on 5 May would be extremely serious. The Electoral Commission is clear that in order for the necessary provisions to be made to hold a referendum on 5 May, Royal Assent for this Bill should be granted by 16 February. In order to give proper time for Report and Third Reading, I believe that the House now expects us to make substantial progress towards completing Committee today. I beg to move.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said. The Bill has two parts: Part 1 provides for the introduction of an alternative system for electing the House of Commons, subject to a yes vote in a national referendum; Part 2 provides for the reduction in the number of House of Commons constituencies from 650 to 600 and the adoption of new rules for determining constituency boundaries that are designed to introduce equality in the number of electors in each constituency.
	As Members will know, the Bill has been described by Mr Nicholas Clegg as the most important constitutional reform since the Great Reform Act 1832. There is no dispute that the Bill is of far-reaching constitutional significance. The Bill passed through all its stages in the Commons, where it was the subject of a guillotine Motion, between September and 1 November 2010. As the noble Lord the Leader said, in your Lordships' House the Bill had a Second Reading over two days at the beginning of November and has so far spent eight days in Committee before today. Six days in Committee have been spent considering Part 1. It will, as is normal, spend longer in this House than in the other place.
	The Electoral Commission announced that the Bill has to have Royal Assent by 16 February 2011 to allow the referendum to take place on 5 May 2011. Last Thursday, without consultation, the Government fixed a third day on Tuesday this week for consideration of the Bill in Committee, making three consecutive days for its consideration this week. They have also made arrangements with the House authorities consistent with there being an all-night sitting tonight. I read in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday that the Cholmondeley Room and the Attlee Room are being prepared to be dormitories for male and female Peers. Your Lordships will be concerned to know that the Sunday Telegraphdid not indicate which was for male and which was for female Peers.
	Members of the Government have criticised the Opposition freely to the press for, they say, taking too long over Committee debates in this House. They have told the press that there has been time wasting and repetition. I believe that I have been present more than any other Member of this House in the debates, with the possible honourable exception of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I do not accept the allegation that has been made. I note that in relation to the most relied-on example-indeed, the example relied on by the noble Lord the Leader today-the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, in the longest debate in this Chamber expressly disavowed with great grace any material allegation of filibuster.
	The Government have refused to make the usual sorts of concession during Committee. Of 60 groups of amendments so far, they have given ground on only two. It is apparent to anyone who has been in the House during these debates that this Bill is attended by party politics, but this Bill contains major reform of our arrangements for determining the size of the House of Commons, the method by which constituency boundaries are fixed and the method of voting for MPs. It has been introduced without public consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny-matters of criticism unanimously across all parties in the constitutional Select Committees of both Houses-and it contains vast detail to give effect to its proposals. The Bill runs to more than 300 pages. It has been amended once in this House, and there have been a number of government amendments. It is unlikely in the extreme that, uniquely among Bills, it cannot be improved further by your Lordships' House.
	Your Lordships' House has well-tested arrangements for ensuring that Bills get proper scrutiny, which include time during each stage and between stages. These arrangements will be departed from in times of economic emergency, where court orders expire and where the nation faces the threat of terrorism or war. I have never known your Lordships' House to resort to measures such as these when there is no external pressure.
	The Bill cannot, consistent with proper scrutiny, complete its still substantial stages in this House, with both parts retained, in time to get Royal Assent on 16 February. The Government's unprecedented timetable, with three days in one week for Committee and all-night sittings, confirms that. It is a process that I assume will continue through all the remaining stages of the Bill. Votes, as a result, may take place at random times of the day or night at any stage, leaving it entirely to chance what changes get made-in practice, knocking your Lordships' House out of contention as a serious scrutiniser of the Bill. It is for your Lordships to consider the effect that that may have on the House's standing as an effective scrutiniser. The House's strength-indeed, its raison d'être-comes from its ability properly to scrutinise legislation.
	The Opposition have made it clear privately and publicly to the Government that we will co-operate in splitting the two parts of the Bill, thereby both allowing the referendum to be held on 5 May 2011, if the Government wish, and ensuring that the Bill-in particular, the crucial Part 2-is properly scrutinised by this House. We repeat that offer here and now, and we are happy at any time to discuss the substance of the Bill, so it is not right to say that the referendum depends on this House.
	We on the opposition side have thought very carefully what to do. First, we urge the Government to think again about splitting the Bill. In any event, they should consult throughout your Lordships' House on process and on substance. My experience is that widespread consultation will produce a solution. We remain willing at any time to discuss and to co-operate to achieve that. If the Government insist on their timetabling arrangements, we have no option but to do all in our power to ensure that the Bill gets proper scrutiny, and therefore that it will not receive Royal Assent by 16 February if it still contains Part 1 and Part 2.
	The BBC interviewed me on Friday. Before the interview, the reporter told me that he had been told by a Minister in the Lords-not, I hasten to add, the noble Lord the Leader, who has assured me that it was not him-that the Government's aim was to keep this going until we dropped. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that with a Bill that fundamentally changes our country's constitution, this is no way to proceed.

Lord Richard: My Lords, perhaps I may say one or two words on this issue. However one looks at the position, the fact is that the Government have got into a terrible mess on this Bill. Given the history of the legislation, which my noble and learned friend has just given, it is hardly surprising. The Government should now perhaps heed the great advice of Denis Healey, which he gave to people in similar holes.
	It is important that we understand what happened and perhaps analyse the reasons for it. The Government cannot expect to legislate at one and the same time on two entirely separate major constitutional issues without their being subject to detailed examination and scrutiny. Nor can they legitimately complain if that scrutiny is extensive and, indeed, extended, particularly given the size of the coalition votes in this House-a majority that seems to increase daily.
	The fact is that they have chosen for their own purposes to join two Bills into one. They must have the first part, which deals with the referendum, in place by mid-February if they are to keep to their chosen date, which I totally understand. However, the other part is quite separate. Had the Bill been divided into two from the outset, the six days that this House spent on the referendum issues could not have been seen remotely as inappropriate or excessive. Indeed, it was about right.
	Where it has gone wrong for the Government is in their assumption that they could tack major changes in parliamentary constituencies on to the referendum issue. They must have known that this part of the Bill would be of intense interest and that the political parties would be heavily involved. If they did not realise that, they should have consulted the large number of ex-Cabinet Ministers sitting on their side of the House. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, certainly would have realised this from previous experience.
	So why did they do it? It seems to me that there is a fairly simple answer to a simple question. It was obviously a complete misreading of the situation, a political error, with which they now have to live. The remedy is quite simple, as suggested by my noble and learned friend-the Bill should be split.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords-

Lord Richard: With respect, I want to be very brief.

The Countess of Mar: I will be very brief. Does the noble Lord agree that the House was asked-it divided on it-whether the Bill should be split, and the Opposition lost the vote?

Lord Richard: My Lords, if a Motion is put down on the Order Paper, it is debated and divided on in the usual way. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking to the Motion that the House should resolve itself into Committee. If the Bill were to be split, the Government would get their referendum and on the date on which they want it. Parliament could go on to consider in detail the proposals on the size of the House of Commons, the number of constituencies and the way in which they are constructed. We might even have pre-legislative scrutiny on that, which we should have had anyway and which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is so much in favour of, as he has told us this afternoon.
	The Government thought that they could get away with it and it now becomes clearer that they cannot. They have not attempted to produce any evidence of a link between Part 1 and Part 2 that would necessitate their being considered together. So we have the present absurdities in the way in which this House is now being asked to consider these two issues. First, there will be three days this week in Committee, which is an unprecedented move as far as I can remember. Secondly, there could be an all-night sitting tonight, with perhaps more to come. My experience of all-night sittings is that most of the time they are self defeating. They do exactly what the Government do not wish to happen: namely, they encourage Oppositions to talk, not to keep quiet. We seem to be in for a bout of parliamentary attrition at the whim of the governing party opposite.
	The Government in this instance have gone far too far. They made an initial mistake, which they are not now prepared to acknowledge: hence the ludicrous way in which this House is now being asked to consider the Bill. It is unprecedented. It is not in accordance with the understandings by which this House operates. The most likely result is that scrutiny of the Bill will continue to be intense and lengthy.
	I considered whether there should be a vote on this Motion. If there were to be a vote, I would vote against a decision that we should resume Committee. The Government should think about this again carefully, and think about the implications not only for the Bill but for the proceedings in this House. If they do so, I do not think that they would find this side of the House unforthcoming.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I have listened carefully to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said. He is always a powerful advocate, but he must think that we are a bunch of idiots if he thinks that those of us who have been watching what has been happening are not aware that there has been a filibuster. The Cross-Benchers will probably be in the best position to judge that. As a result of Fenian tactics at the end of the last century, a filibuster is dealt with in the other place by a guillotine and closure procedures. In this Chamber, we are fortunate because we have never had to employ those procedures, but we have never had a filibuster. In the 16 years that I have been here, I have never seen conduct like this.
	I am not concerned about this Bill but about the future procedures of this House, which transcend any concern as to whether there should be one Bill, two Bills or no Bill. What matters is that we should be able to conduct ourselves in this House in a reasonable way. I do not think that we have been conducting ourselves in a reasonable way. What, therefore, is the choice now-for those on these Benches simply to collapse and give way to in effect an ultimatum or to have to use, I am afraid, the time taken night after night, if necessary, to see Committee completed?
	A great leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell, once said that we must fight and fight again for the party we love. I believe that we have to do exactly the same in this House today to save it from the kind of things that have happened in the other place and which have recently been imported to this House by some recent additions, some Ministers, who should know better.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, uncharacteristically, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, cannot have checked on the progress of Bills under the previous Government. I have the figures in front of me. I am happy to present them in the Library, should that be necessary. I shall mention just one-the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, which took 19 days to go through the House. In no way am I minimising the importance of that Bill, but I think that a constitutional Bill should involve at least as much time as that.
	I recognise and understand the problems faced by the business managers on the Front Bench. It must be much more difficult in some respects when there is a coalition. It is a difficult job managing government business-I can certainly testify to that-but, certainly during the six years when I was responsible, I can find only one occasion on which we considered the same Bill on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That was overwhelmingly because of consideration of the needs and demands of those on the opposition Front Bench, who find it extremely difficult-understandably because they are part-timers-to do the necessary revision for three days in succession in detail on a difficult Bill. On only two or three occasions did we go through the night.
	On all those exceptional occasions, it was because there was the imperative of dates. Usually, the imperative is the Queen's Speech at the end of a Session. Of course, one cannot notify the Palace a fortnight before the Queen's Speech is due and say, "Sorry, because Report on a Bill is taking a long time, could you put the date back a week?". That date is imperative. Alternatively, as happened quite often under the previous Government, the imperatives for Northern Ireland legislation were unarguable. They were clear and demonstrable.
	I concede totally to the Government that there is an imperative in this Bill, and we are conceding that publicly today. The imperative is not one I like, and the House knows my views on various forms of electoral systems, but the imperative for the Government is to get the Bill completed by 16 February so that there can be a referendum on 5 May. I acknowledge that imperative and it has been conceded.
	However, I put it to the Government and to the House that there is absolutely no imperative whatsoever about Part 2 of the Bill. But before I move on from Part 1, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, as my noble friend has said, that if he thinks six days on the Committee stage of a Bill that potentially fulfils the Lib Dems' dreams of a change to the electoral system is filibustering, he does not know what a filibuster is.
	I say to the Government with some envy that there is no imperative on Part 2 principally because they decided-I am not quite sure how it happened because it was like a rabbit out of a hat-that this should be a two-year Session of Parliament. I would have thought it was my birthday and Christmas rolled into one if, when I was responsible for government legislation, someone had said that we could have a two-year Session in which to put Bills through. The nightmare every year was finishing Bills in time for the Queen's Speech.
	There is ample time for proper scrutiny of Part 2, so again I put it specifically to the Government that it is an accident of the timing of this debate that today, or most probably tonight, we will be discussing the not inconsiderable proposition that the number of Members of the other House should be culled by 50. We shall be doing that at two or three in the morning when many Members of your Lordships' House-sadly I do not think that they will include me-may well be asleep. I put it to noble Lords that if the situation was reversed so that the House of Commons was about to cull substantial numbers of this House and decided to do it at two or three in the morning when hardly anyone was around, we would have a word or two to say about it, and rightly so.
	Finally, I want simply to make this point. We are in uncharted territory. The reason for that, which we are all learning, is that we have a coalition Government. I acknowledge that. We do not know quite what the rules of play are in a coalition Government but what I do know is that this House, under a coalition Government, has an advantage that Chief Whips may have dreamed about but never envisaged. They have 40 per cent of the votes in this House. I have included the Cross-Benchers in that calculation; I would not be presumptuous enough to suggest that they would ever vote as a block, as they never do. The actual majority the Government have over the Opposition, if it is reckoned simply in terms of people with party allegiances and subject to a party whip, is very substantial. It is perfectly within the power of this coalition Government, if they want to, to drive through legislation against the wishes of the minority in the House. They can do that. They can schedule constitutional business in the middle of the night if they want to do that.
	I end with this observation. There are three constitutional Bills coming through this House of which this is the first, described by Nick Clegg as the most important since 1832. The third of three Bills is about the reform of this House. I simply put it to those Members of the House who may not be too concerned about this Bill but are very concerned indeed about the fundamental changes involved in a move from an appointed House to an elected House-which I am certainly very concerned about-that if the Government were now to set a precedent that a major constitutional Bill will be driven through in the middle of the night, and that anyone who criticises that is guilty of a filibuster, that is a very bad precedent indeed.
	The offer is clear. It is not my offer because it is for the Front Benches opposite. The Government have a way out of this: take the referendum part of the Bill out and agree on a sensible schedule for considering Part 2. We do not like the House to get into the position it is in at the moment; I certainly do not like it. But that is an offer on the table which I think any reasonable person would accept.

Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to put forward, with some diffidence, a perception from a Cross-Bencher, because the Cross-Benchers have been referred to. I think it is known that the Cross-Benchers actually listen to the arguments and we vote according to what we believe are the better arguments. But when a debate on one amendment takes three and three-quarter hours and is not followed by asking the House to decide on it, that is the point at which the Cross-Benchers wonder-I personally wonder and I believe I am not alone-what is actually going on.

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, I wonder if I could ask a brief question: what is all the hurry about? Why do we have to have a referendum this May? Why can we not wait and have it in a year's time, or at any time? This is something that is too important to rush, as we are doing.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I have been somewhat pre-empted by the two previous speakers in asking a question of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, although it is probably inappropriate to ask him at this juncture, so perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, would be the right person to address it. He and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, came forward with a perfectly reasonable offer that they would agree to splitting the Bill. However, is there not a difficulty in that, as the noble and learned Lord said, we are now close to the beginning of Part 2 of this Bill, so it would be impossible to do such a thing now? It is therefore necessary, is it not, to continue with Committee until it is finished? At that point, it would not be beyond the wit of the Government to accept the noble Lords' offer, but I do not think it is practicable at this moment.

Lord Elton: My Lords, I want to interject in support of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and say to my noble friend that it is not as simple as that. The House is not allowed to be asked to give its opinion a second time on any issue, and the House decided that this Bill should be given a Second Reading. What is being asked for is to have two new Bills, and that is not feasible.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I want to make a brief point. There are precedents for splitting Bills which have got into difficulties. I refer to the 1977 Scotland and Wales Bill which, after a lot of discussion, was in fact split in the House of Commons. That enabled the Scotland Bill to go forward in that Parliament, and the Wales Bill went forward a little later. It was unfortunate for Scotland, perhaps, that the people did not want devolution at the time. A way was found to split the Bill and there is no reason why a way should not be found to split this one.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: On the question of splitting the Bill, the advice I have received is that it is not open to this House to send back to the Commons a Bill that has been divided into two unless the Government give their consent to that. That position was made clear by my noble friend Lady McDonagh and that is why there was no vote on it. The Government did not give their consent. However, if the Government consent to it, it is possible for that course to be taken.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, asked an extremely good question a few minutes ago. She said, "Why the urgency?". Of course, the answer is that last July, when the Government announced their intention to bring this legislation forward and published the Bill, there was no urgency. There was no urgency when it was debated in another place. There was no urgency when it came here. The situation has become urgent because the Labour Party has decided to go on a marathon go-slow on the Bill ever since we started Committee.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: I hope that the Leader will allow me to point out to him that that was not the question that the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, put to him. The question was, "Why should the referendum date be the date that it is?"-not "Why has it taken so long to get to this point?", but "Why is the date the date?". That seems to me to be a question that he has not yet addressed.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, my point still stands. The Government made an announcement soon after the general election that there would be a referendum on 5 May. I really wonder whether it is right for this House to stand up and suddenly say that should not be the case, when there was plenty of time for the Bill to be properly scrutinised.
	I move on to reply to the other points that were made. The noble and learned Lord said that we are trying now to rush the Bill through and that there has not been enough consultation with the Opposition. Ever since the Bill arrived in the House, the usual channels-government and opposition-have been trying to come to an agreement, but there was an absolute refusal by the Labour Party, right from the start, to engage in trying to decide the number of days in Committee.
	It is said that we have been planning an all-night sitting. I have no desire to have an all-night sitting, or a very late sitting. It is entirely in the hands of the Opposition how long we stay here this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, for whom, as a former distinguished Leader of this House, I have the utmost respect, said that the trouble with all-night sittings is that it encourages the Opposition-he did not quite say to behave even more badly, but it was sort of what he meant. We could not go any slower than we have done over the course of the past eight days.
	Let us deal with the substantive point, the issue of splitting the Bill. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, was right in one part of her memory-we did debate splitting the Bill in a Motion put at the very start of the legislative process. That Motion was withdrawn after a debate, but I think that the noble Countess's point stands. Both the issues that we are dealing with in the Bill are about how MPs are elected to the House of Commons. The Bill will give voters, for the first time, a say in the way in which they elect their MPs and will mean that fairer boundaries and more equal constituencies can be put in place for the general election in 2013.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords-

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, may I just finish this important point? Noble Lords opposite have said that we should split the Bill and that we should not have included these two issues in one Bill. Yet the last Government's Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, introduced to this House last year, included provision on 13 different areas ranging from a referendum on the alternative vote to freedom of information, ratification of treaties and so on. It seems odd to me that, in opposition, noble Lords opposite have so quickly become concerned about these two reforms with a common theme comprising the same Bill. Even worse, we have the noble Lords, Lord Touhig, Lord McAvoy and Lord Browne of Ladyton, who voted entirely happily, without interruption, in proceedings in another place when an amendment was brought forward on Report and yet, as soon as the Bill comes here and they have been translated into Members of the House of Lords, they take an entirely different view. I now give way to the noble Lord.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: I thank the Leader of the House. He speaks about urgency in choosing 5 May of this year. That might have been reasonable in previous times, when an election could be called at any time by the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister has said that there will be no election for five years, so what is the urgency about having the referendum on 5 May of this year?

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, on the same subject, the Government do not govern on their own; they govern with the two Houses of Parliament and these decide whether it is going to be 5 May 2011 or 5 or 6 May 2012.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, that is right. Like the noble and learned Lord, I have sat through many of the debates that have taken place over the past nine days and I have sympathy for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other Members-not just on the Cross Benches, but in all parts of the House-who wished to take part in this debate and feel that they have become excluded from it because it has taken so long. The truth is that the Labour Party has a political objective to break this key coalition Bill, stop the referendum and stop the reduction in the number of MPs.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, forgive me but, on a point of information for the House, I respectfully remind the House that the House as a whole adopted an amendment, moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker, which would enable the referendum to take place on any date before 31 October. That was the will of this House.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness has said.
	Motion agreed.
	Clause 11 : Number and distribution of seats
	Amendment 58A
	 Moved by Lord Falconer of Thoroton
	58A: Clause 11, page 9, leave out lines 17 and 18 and insert-
	"United Kingdom electoral quota
	The United Kingdom electoral quota shall be defined as the total electorate of the United Kingdom on the designated enumeration day divided by 650."

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My distress at the lack of interest in the substance of the Bill is a matter of some import.
	Amendment 58A would replace the current proposal in Clause 11 to fix the House of Commons at 600 seats, with an alternative rule which would anchor the size of the other place at its current membership of 650.
	As your Lordships' House's Constitution Committee made clear in its report on the Bill:
	"We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs".
	That reality was exposed in the debate last Monday, when the Government again failed to provide any adequate explanation as to why 600 seats is the optimum size for the other place or, in particular, why a 600-seat Commons would serve the public more effectively than the current 650-seat Chamber.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, conceded from the Front Bench that:
	"We have never suggested that there was anything magic or ideal about a House of Commons of 600 any more than the current size of 650 is ideal".-[Official Report, 10/01/11; col. 1222.]
	Is that, I ask, rhetorically, the best that the Government can do in a situation where they are using their political majority in the other place in order to push through a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? It is obviously a dangerous precedent that is being adopted, because it involves using your political power to fix the size of the legislative chamber in circumstances where people will allege, as we do on this side, that it is being done for political advantage.
	It is worth saying that that approach to the question of the size of the legislative chamber has not been adopted in this country since the Second World War, when a Speaker's Conference agreed the arrangement that then became law in 1949 and, though there have been changes to the detail, it has never been disputed that the people who should decide the number of constituencies in the country should be the boundary commissions, which are believed-correctly, in my view-to be beyond party politics. We do not want to get into a position where, when you win an election, you then use your majority to fix the size of the House of Commons to suit your political advantage.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Is there not, as a result of this affront to our constitution in the way that this is being done, the danger that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? There must be a considerable temptation for any incoming Government to do the same. I would hope that we would resist that temptation, but the pendulum will swing and the party or parties opposite will not be for ever in Government. The danger is that one hallowed principle of our constitution will be wilfully thrown away.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I agree with all of that. I very much hope that we would not succumb to that temptation, but once the door is open, it becomes harder and harder to resist.

Lord Trimble: The noble Lord refers to this as a "hallowed principle of our constitution", but it was not applied to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace said, with regard to the Scottish Parliament, that there were some really arcane discussions, which he said he might reveal to us some time, that resulted in the rather unusual figure there. I know myself, and I will not weary the House, about the political considerations that drove the size of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I confess ignorance with regard to the Welsh Assembly. But that "hallowed principle" has not been applied by Governments drawn from both sides of this House over the past few years.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I do not want to go into Northern Irish politics because I feel that if I did, I would make a number of mistakes. I can talk about Scottish politics, and I can say this: the effect of the reduction in the number of Members of Parliament in Scotland was, in political terms, wholly to the detriment of the Labour Party. However, it was introduced by a Government with a substantial Labour majority. Yes, it was done by a Government, but it was plain that it was being done in a way that was to the detriment of the interest of that Government. So, in my view, it does not raise the issues that the noble Lord is raising.

Lord Trimble: I am afraid that the noble and learned Lord has misunderstood the point that I was making, which was with regard not to the number of Westminster Members from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but to the size of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is a different matter.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I accept that as well but I can see no process by which, when you are setting up a Parliament, you can do so except by the passage of a Bill in Parliament.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: May a voice from Wales seek to assist my noble friend in respect of what happened regarding the Welsh Assembly? There was a consensus; it was agreed that there should be 60 seats, 40 of which would be exactly the same as the Westminster constituencies, while the other 20 would be based on regional representation and on a form of proportional representation. It was done not in a partisan way at all but on the basis of consensus, which manifestly has not been done in this case.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I think that that is fair, and it applies to the putting together of the Welsh Assembly, the putting together of the Scottish Parliament and the reduction in the number of Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament. As I say, I defer in every single respect to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, in relation to what happened in Northern Ireland.
	We believe that the case for a 650-seat Commons has not changed since the current Prime Minister spoke in its favour-indeed, in favour of a slightly larger elected Chamber-at the 2003 Oxfordshire boundary inquiry. Opposing proposals to alter his own constituency borders, he told that inquiry:
	"Somebody might take the view that at 659 there are already too many Members of Parliament at Westminster. They may take the view, depending on what happens in the European constitution, that Westminster has less to do, with less MPs-I certainly hope that is not the case. This is all some way off".
	What has changed in the mean time to alter the view that there is no need for a reduction in the size of the House of Commons? The Government have failed to answer that question.
	Our amendment stems from a conviction that the current Commons of 650, which is broadly the figure that it has been since 1983, is the appropriate basis on which to stabilise the size of that Chamber. Although the membership of the House has been pretty stable over the past number of years, both rising and falling, concerns have been expressed about the potential for a ratchet effect resulting from the interplay of some of the existing rules for drawing parliamentary boundaries.
	Our amendment therefore follows the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its 1987 report on the rules for drawing constituency boundaries, which proposed that the UK electoral quota should be calculated using the "fixed divisor" method. The Committee recommended that the divisor should be fixed on the basis of a 650-seat House of Commons.
	Put simply, under our proposed alternative rules, an initial UK electoral quota would be calculated by dividing the total UK electorate by the fixed number of 650-in other words, not altering the current size of the House of Commons. This mechanism, which should be read alongside our other amendments, would not necessarily fix the House at 650 seats for ever. It would stabilise the House at around that size but with the mathematical rounding up or down involved in the calculation of seats in the four parts of the UK, and once special allowance is made for seats like the Scottish islands, it could be possible to see very minor fluctuations in the size of the Commons-one or two seats either side of 650. We see that as a virtue of the fixed divisor method and an advantage that it holds over the Government's proposal for a fixed number of seats.
	The latter approach-the fixed number of seats adopted by the Government-was criticised by the head of the English Boundary Commission when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry in 1987. He warned that stipulating an exact fixed number of seats for the Commons would require the boundary commissions to use a "Bed of Procrustes" for drawing constituencies, stretching the borders of those that were too small and lopping parts off others that were too big. He warned the committee away from that method and instead urged the use of a fixed divisor, which would result in a broadly stable Commons while allowing the boundary commissions a bit of practical leeway.
	Now, of course, even if we could convince the Government of the practical benefits of our amendment, we would still need to persuade them on the issue of the most appropriate size of the Commons. Before we consider the relative merits and demerits of this amendment against the Government's proposal for a 600-seat House of Commons, though, it is worth reminding ourselves of what the two parties opposite were saying on this subject before the election.
	The Liberal Democrat general election manifesto contained a commitment to creating a 500-seat House of Commons elected on the basis of the single transferable vote. The Conservative Party manifesto contained a commitment to the continuation of the first past the post system for elections to the Commons but pledged to cut the number of MPs, saying that it envisaged a 585-seat House. So why did the coalition agreement settle upon 600 seats as the perfect number, as opposed to 500 or 585? I ask the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who I assume will be answering, to explain the reasoning behind that specific decision.
	In particular, why did the two coalition partners agree on a figure that was higher than both their original proposals? Compromises usually involve a meeting in the middle-what happened here? Could the proposal for a 600-seat House have had anything whatever to do with the Conservative Party's fears that the mathematical reality of a reduction below 600 would require the loss of seats in shire counties? Or did that have no bearing on the decision?
	Leaving aside the reasons why the Government are so fixated on a 600-seat House, there is a broader question about what is wrong with the size of the current Commons. The Government claim that it is, to use their words, a bloated Chamber and that the UK suffers from something that they describe as "overrepresentation". The facts show they are wrong on both counts. The claim that Britain is overrepresented in comparison with similar-sized countries is based on simple international comparisons of numbers of elected national representatives per head of population. In fact, the extent to which the UK has more elected representatives in the national legislature per head of population can be exaggerated. As a briefing note from the House of Commons Library makes clear, the United Kingdom has roughly the same ratio as France and Italy. However, the central point is that these calculations take account only of national legislatures and do not include any reference to levels of representation beneath that tier.

Lord Rooker: It is interesting that my noble and learned friend mentions France. In France, one in 100 adults is an elected official of some kind, whereas in this country the figure is about one in 1,600, if we take into account parish councils and urban districts. France is remarkably democratic and has less pressure at a national level because there is so much devolved democracy-16 times more so than here.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: That is an interesting point and, significantly, my noble friend Lord Rooker has prefaced the point that I was just about to make. As I said, the central issue is that the calculations of the numbers of national representatives per head of population take account only of national legislatures and do not include references to levels of representation beneath that tier. If we look below the national level, the United Kingdom has far fewer elected officeholders per head of population than almost all comparable countries. An academic study by Democratic Audit found that, at local government level, the population per elected member is around 2,600 in the United Kingdom, 250 in Germany and 116 in France. Therefore, when sub-national elected representatives are factored in, as my noble friend Lord Rooker has pointed out, it is apparent that the UK does not suffer from overrepresentation; if anything, it suffers from the opposite.
	In any event, there is a fundamental problem in seeking to draw simple comparisons between the numbers of elected representatives in different national legislatures. Some countries are unitary states, whereas others are federal states; some have a Westminster model, like that of the United Kingdom, whereas others have a presidential system, like that of the United States of America. As a consequence, their administrative and electoral systems are organised in different ways. Therefore, comparing rates of representation in one national legislature with those in another is a largely pointless exercise akin to comparing apples and pears.
	A more sensible basis on which to decide what level of representation is right for the UK is to examine how the size of the House of Commons has changed over time. If the number of Members of Parliament were growing inexorably and out of all proportion to the size of the electorate, there would clearly be a problem. However, the evidence shows that that is not the case. The Commons has not grown disproportionately in size over recent years. The size of the Commons has increased by around 3 or 4 per cent, or by 25 Members, since 1950, but the electorate-and, therefore, the average size of constituencies-has increased by 25 per cent over that period.
	There has also been a significant increase in the case load of Members of Parliament, which has grown out of proportion to the size of the population as a consequence of changing social norms, political developments and new forms of communication. According to the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, in the 1950s and 1960s Members received on average 12 to 15 letters per week. Today, the average is 300 per week-I am still quoting figures from the Modernisation Committee-and then there are e-mails, faxes and telephone calls to take into account. There is no evidence that having fewer MPs will reduce the demand for their services. Assuming that that remains the same, the pressure on the remaining Members and their staff will increase.
	If the service that Members of Parliament provide to their constituents is not to deteriorate, and if MPs are to be able to take part in Select Committees and Public Bill Committees, which have become considerably more active in recent decades, Members of Parliament will need greater resources to employ people as caseworkers and secretaries. The savings made through a reduction of 50 Members of Parliament would inevitably be lost, which would undermine the argument that this is a worthy, cost-cutting measure.
	The provision on the size of the House of Commons is one of the most important in the Bill. We are being asked to cut 50 seats from the primary political body in the United Kingdom and to fix its size in statute, in perpetuity, at 600, but we are not really being given any proper explanation as to why that is the most appropriate size for the House of Commons. Does anyone in this Chamber honestly think that this is the right way to enact such a fundamental constitutional change? What, I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is the justification for reducing the size of the House of Commons and increasing the size of this place?
	In conclusion, one of the central arguments that can be made in support of an unelected House of Lords is that its Members are able to exercise a greater independence of thought than representatives who are elected-they are that bit freer of the party constraints that have a more restrictive impact on the actions of colleagues in the other place. That is one reason why, down the years, your Lordships have been able to act as the guardians of the constitution and face down Executive moves that are rooted in party interests and not the national interests.
	The new era of coalition government is a challenge to your Lordships' House-a challenge as to whether it is willing and able to act as an independent-minded revising Chamber. The alternative is to become a rubber stamp for the Executive. This Bill, and this issue perhaps more than many others, will serve as an important litmus test on how your Lordships' House intends to respond to that challenge.

Viscount Simon: I must advise your Lordships that, if Amendment 58A is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 59 to 63ZA inclusive and Amendment 66B due to pre-emption.

Lord Maples: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, asks why it should fall to Parliament to make this decision. It seems to me that it must, and that ultimately the will of the House of Commons should prevail but that obviously our views should be sought too. The nature of the rules that the Boundary Commission operates at present involves an inevitable escalation of the number of Members of Parliament at every Boundary Commission review.
	I completely agree with the noble and learned Lord that there is no magic number. Those of us who sat in the House of Commons probably would not be able to agree what the optimum number should be. However, there are now 650 Members. I think that there were 625 when I first got in in 1983-or perhaps that was the figure in 1979-and there were 659 in 1997. Therefore, there has been quite a variety in the number of MPs. In the 20th century, the number rose from 615 to 659, but of course that does not take account of the fact that the number of Scottish seats fell by, I think, 13 at the time of devolution. If those are added as well, we are still talking about a number around the 660 mark.
	With 600 seats, the average number of voters would be 75,000 per Member of Parliament. I should like to speak-

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Before the noble Lord moves on to that specific point, does he not agree that, on all those occasions, the figures arose from decisions made by the Boundary Commission and were never imposed by Parliament?

Lord Maples: That is not correct. The boundary commissions legislation states the number of seats in Scotland and Wales. In fact, the legislation says that there will be a minimum of 35 seats for Wales, whereas there are actually 40, and it also gives minimum numbers for Northern Ireland and Scotland. Therefore, I do not think that it is right to say that the matter has been left entirely to the boundary commissions.
	I revert to my point that there has been an escalation in the Boundary Commission process. With 600 seats, there would be about 75,000 voters per Member of Parliament. I have tabled an amendment-Amendment 63ZA-that suggests that the House should be reduced in size progressively over the next three boundary reviews to 600 MPs at the next election, 550 at the one after that and 500 at the one after that. If the number got to 500, there would be 90,000 electors per Member of Parliament. I had very nearly 90,000 electors when I was a Member of Parliament and it was not an unmanageable constituency at all. For those with very small constituencies-mostly in Scotland and Wales-frankly I wonder how theirs can be a full-time job, because it was perfectly easy for me to handle an electorate of about 85,000. It is a matter of the number of staff-a point that I shall come to in a minute.

Lord Touhig: My Lords-

Lord Maples: I should like to progress. This is like making a speech in the House of Commons, where people intervene the whole time. The noble Lord can make his own speech in his own time about the number of seats in Wales. Following on from my Amendment 63ZA, I have tabled another-Amendment 66B-which would reduce the denominator and the fraction for deciding the electorate for each seat.
	There are several reasons for making such a change. First, we are moving towards a general feeling that the Government should be smaller. I think that the number of Ministers has got too high. Certainly, if the size of the House of Commons were to be reduced, the number of Ministers in it would also have to decrease. Secondly, there is a wide perception-this is based only on anecdotal evidence-that there are too many politicians who cost too much money. I agree that the cost of the House of Commons will not necessarily fall a lot as a result of the proposed change, but the cost has doubled in the past 13 years. The cost doubled under Labour largely because we were all given an enormously increased number of staff. That has to come to an end. Members of the House of Commons are not the most popular people in the country. If people knew that MPs were costing more, they would not be happy about it.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that we should not be too swayed by international comparisons, and I rather agree that we should make up our own minds. He then said that one should take account of other countries' devolved layers of government-for example, Germany is a federal state and France, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, pointed out, has elected representatives at all sorts of other levels. If that is so, that is an argument for the quota for Wales and Scotland being lower than for England because England does not have a devolved Assembly. To many of us, it seems that the numerical advantage was taken away from Scotland by the devolution Act. If that argument is to hold sway, it should result in fewer Members of Parliament at Westminster for Wales and Scotland on a quota basis than for England. However, politicians in other countries find themselves perfectly capable of dealing with constituencies that are much larger than 75,000 voters. I think that constituencies in Germany have about 140,000 voters and those in France about 100,000 voters, whereas here, even under my proposal for reducing the House of Commons to 500 Members, the figure would be 90,000.
	Let us look at some of the changes that have taken place and the work that is required of Members of Parliament. The devolved Assemblies have, frankly, reduced the workload of the Members of Parliament for those areas for which there are devolved Assemblies, because the work is now split between more people. It may be that Parkinson's law is in operation and that demand is rising to meet supply, but, in objective terms, there are more elected representatives theoretically doing the same work.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, referred to the increase in constituency work, which is undoubtedly true, but an awful lot of that can be, and is, dealt with by Members' staff. In most of the run-of-the-mill cases with which Members of Parliament have to deal-which they should not have to sort out, as the bureaucracy should be more responsive than it needing a letter from a Member of Parliament to break some bureaucratic impasse-all that they need to do is sign the letter. They do not have to involve themselves in the details of every case.
	We have moved to a House of Commons in which the vast majority of its Members are now professional politicians-it is a full-time job for MPs, who do not do anything else-but the Chamber has become less relevant in holding the Government to account. I suppose that the Chamber is where politicians make their reputation, but, apart from that, the game is so heavily skewed in the Government's favour that the Chamber is not really where the Government are held to account; that is in Select Committees.
	If the House of Commons is to develop, as I hope, in a way that makes it as constitutionally important in the future as it has been in the past, it will be through the work of Select Committees. We do not need a 600 or 650-Member House to staff those. It is my experience from the past 13 years that an enormous number of Members of Parliament, particularly those with marginal seats, have been encouraged to spend less time at Westminster and more in their constituencies. That is another area in which work has expanded to fill the time available in which to do it.
	What do you need in the House of Commons? Well, you need a Government. At present, there are 95 Members of the House of Commons in the Government. If the House of Commons were reduced in size along the lines that I suggest, that number should be reduced. However, let us say that you would still need 85 Members in the Government. You would need a similar number in the Opposition to shadow them. You would need some alternatives in both the Opposition and the Government, so that when people either want to resign or have resignation forced upon them, there would be somebody else to take their place. There will be new people at each election. If you add all that up, you come to about 300 people.
	Then you need Select Committees, of which there are 17 at the moment. I do not think that 12 or 14 Members are needed on a Select Committee; I have sat on committees of various sizes and would have thought that 10 is about right. Some of the people who sit on Select Committees would also be in one of the other categories in the House of Commons. Opposition spokesmen do not sit on Select Committees, nor do Ministers, but people in the other place who hope to become opposition spokesmen or Ministers are very often on Select Committees-only about 150 people are precluded from being on them.
	I would have thought, therefore, that a House of Commons of 500 would be more than enough to satisfy those requirements. That is too big a reduction for one Parliament-it may be too big a reduction for three-but I would be grateful if my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench could respond. Particularly in light of how painful and time-consuming it has been to get this reduction through, perhaps it would be a good idea to build in future reductions as well.

Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I should like to bring to light some of the facts that should come to bear on this decision. I do not think that anybody on the government side has yet spelled out a very good reason for thinking that 600 is the magic number and that 650 is the wrong number. That is a subject on which a judgment can be reached only in the light of all the facts about what is going on and what is likely to happen if we do not do anything about it.
	One of the underlying assumptions made by the Government in all their speeches on prior clauses of the Bill is that there has been a tendency for the number of Members of Parliament to increase. Let us look at the facts. Yes, it is true that if you choose as your base date 1950 there has been a small increase from 625 Members of the Commons then to 650 today. It is an increase. But why take 1950? You might, for example, take 1983, which is, after all, more than a quarter of a century ago. Since 1983, the number of Members of the House of Commons has not changed; it has remained at 650. Alternatively, and this is a historically-minded House, one might go back to 1918, when the number of Members of the House of Commons was 707. I readily accept that there are explanations both for the increases and decreases, to some of which I shall come shortly, but this is a case not of an upwards trend ad infinitum but of fluctuations based on various things. One of those things which has tended to force the number perhaps to be higher than might be essential is Welsh representation-we shall come to that later in the Bill; I think that the proposal to cut it from 40 to 30 is too draconian, but, equally, 40 may be rather too many and there might be a saving to be made there.
	It has to be accepted that, in the previous rules of the Boundary Commission, which have to be put right, there has been a contradiction which has caused some small change in the rise in the number of Members of the House of Commons. As I understand it, rule 1 requires that the House of Commons does not grow in total size, and rule 5 requires indivisible units-for example, counties-to be allocated the number of seats which makes each constituency as near as possible to the desired quota. This, in technical language, requires rounding-off at the harmonic mean, which is always beyond the arithmetic mean. If anyone wants me to go into that in more detail, I can guarantee to take up all day and all night in doing so, but I very much doubt that it would greatly be for the elucidation of the Committee. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord on the Front Bench would suggest that I do not do any such thing since it would cut across our desire to give this Bill the correct scrutiny in the minimum time that is necessary. Without going into those conflicts in the rules, I suggest that it would be possible to amend the rules in a quite a minor way to reduce that inflating factor in so far as it exists.
	I have said that the number of MPs has not increased much. What has indisputably and hugely increased is the number of electors each MP has to service. Let us take 1950, which is the basis for comparison that is most favourable to the Government's case. As my noble and learned friend said, the number of MPs is up 3 per cent and the electorate is up 25 per cent. If my schoolboy arithmetic is correct, electorate per MP is up 22 per cent. Let us again, because this is a historic House, take the longer perspective. In 1918, the average MP represented 30,000 electors. In 1950, the number was 55,000 electors. In 1983, it was 65,000 and, in 2005, it was 68,000. Under this Bill, that will go up to 75,000 electors. That is an increase two-and-a-half times over. It is possible that that is not right, but it seems a pretty big increase, the last bit of which is entirely due to the reduction brought about by this Bill.
	That of course is electors per MP. However, the MP's workload-and there are many former Members of another place who will no doubt give the House the benefit of their own experience-does not just depend on the number of electors, it depends on how many people live in their constituency. There are some very large discrepancies between the number of people and the number of electors. I have not been able to find, given the truncated timetable we are working to, an actual figure of number of people per electorate since 1918, but I can absolutely guarantee, I think, that it will have grown faster than the number of electors per MP, with immigration and the lack of people registering as a result. It is population that is the generator of workload.
	Then, workload per person in your electorate has increased. Last time I spoke on a related matter in this House I mentioned that when I started work for Tony Crosland back in 1972 we got 30 letters a week from his Grimsby constituents and they could all be happily dealt with by an excellent part-time secretary in consultation with the local party. The situation today is nothing like that. It is not just numbers-the 300 letters my noble friend cited-but it is the sheer complexity of the cases. The complexity of an immigration case is enormous, which is of course why the cost to the Commons has gone up. It is not that there are more MPs-that has been a trivial factor. In order to perform the services that the people of this country expect them to perform, MPs need far more caseworkers to help them with constituency cases.
	There is another factor which is much less remarked on but I think is quite important. The psephological evidence, until reasonably recently, was unambiguous. It did not matter how hard an MP worked or how lazy he was; there was practically no incumbent effect on subsequent general elections. Whether you won or not depended nearly entirely on the popularity of your party and not on how good a job you did. I hate saying it because I know it might offend some people who were MPs many years ago when that was so. However, I am afraid that the psephological evidence is unambiguous. That evidence has now changed. I will not go into the full detail-I would advise noble Lords that they can read the Curtice appendix to the Cowley and Kavanagh book on the 2010 general election. You will find that even MPs who had been at the heart of expenses scandals did better than new candidates who had not been in the House before. It is absolutely unambiguous evidence. I do not think that anybody in this Chamber would doubt for a minute that the great majority, even near to saying all, Members of Parliament, whatever their other faults and virtues, are deeply assiduous in servicing the needs of their constituencies and constituents. It is a plus factor for me that they get a bit of appreciation for that. I have known Members who lost their seats who were deeply upset for years afterwards because they thought their constituents had not shown them the gratitude they felt they had earned. Well now, their constituents are starting to show gratitude and that is a great thing.
	Then there is the question of workload other than constituency work. There are 240 places now to be filled on departmental Select Committees-they did not exist really when I started in business-and 227 other places in committees. There is the sheer volume of legislation, I admit often guillotined down the other end, but you have to read the thing if you are going to take any part. The size of Bills has increased exponentially, largely as a result of the demise of the typewriter and the growth of the word processor which means there is no incentive whatever for draftsmen to cut anything out and every incentive to put things in because nothing has to be retyped. There is the huge effort of looking after our demanding press. There is the huge effort of dealing with the new profession of public affairs consultants, all of whom have good reason to come and see you about matters of one kind of another. The average MP today works far, far harder than the average MP did in the past. That is not going to change and it is the reason why most MPs today have to be full-time Members of Parliament. It makes me wonder whether it is a good idea to cut their numbers when they are having to work very much harder.
	Then there is the question, which was again raised by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, of the ratio of members of the Government to Back-Benchers. This measure would make that ratio worse at a stroke. At the moment, the number of Ministers and Whips in the lower House is roughly just over a third of the number of Back-Benchers. This legislation would change that to 40 per cent. Among the remaining Back-Benchers there are some who are essentially the equivalent of Ministers, in the sense that they will do whatever the Government ask, however awful, in the hope of getting promotion out of the Prime Minister. Therefore, the number of independent Back-Benchers in another place, on whom we rely so much to hold the Government to account, is going to diminish. We have heard airy words that perhaps Prime Ministers in future will appoint fewer Ministers. I have been hearing them for 25 years too and of course it never happens because by appointing somebody a Minister a Prime Minister can bind them to him. On top of that there is the increased number of victims these days of sexual scandal or alleged blunder of one kind or another appearing in the newspapers. There is a greater turnover of Ministers as a result and, in my opinion, the Prime Minister will continue to appoint just as many. Whether all of them have full jobs to do is another matter, but there are good reasons to do it. He also has to maintain party balance and now, coalition balance, because some of the most fed up people with the emergence of this coalition Government are those people, mostly in the Tory party, who thought before they would get jobs and now find themselves on the Back Benches. Disgruntled does not begin to describe their mood. So there will not be fewer Ministers; it is a pity therefore that there will be fewer Back-Benchers. It also reduces what Professor Anthony King in a notable phrase has called the "gene pool" that is available. The fewer Back-Benchers available to promote the less possibility there is of new and excellent talent emerging to replace talent that is exhausted, talent that has destroyed itself and so on. That is another cost of the diminution.
	Finally, we come back to the last argument which is extant of those who say that there is an evident case for reducing the number of MPs-and that is money. They say they will save money by doing it. That is not obvious to me because if the work has still to be done, it has still to be paid for. You may have fewer MPs but you are going to have more constituency workers per MP. You must do in order for them to cope with the sheer volume of correspondence and so on. The only saving I can see is that there will be the saving of 50 MPs' salaries-that comes to a little over £3 million a year. Of that, £1 million will be lost in income tax so that is about £2 million. You could raise that by a decent tax on one banker's bonus. This makes me feel that the money argument is really just a populist argument, as indeed is the whole argument for reducing the number of MPs. It is not based on fact, it is not based on analysis, it was pulled out of a hat in an attempt to satisfy a popular anti-MP mood, and it is your Lordships' duty, and a duty in which we should take pleasure, to say hold on, let us look at the facts, let us see whether this decrease is really justified. If it is not, we are entitled to ask the House of Commons to think again.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Is there not a danger that if the workload remains the same and the number of MPs is reduced there will be an increase in the number of Members' staff, which will in itself almost certainly lead to less of a direct contact between the Member and those he seeks to represent, which cannot be a good thing for democracy.

Lord Lipsey: My noble friend is absolutely right about that. It will also mean that the queue of people waiting to become MPs will be even longer since in my experience most of these MPs' staff are waiting only for the moment when they can jump into the shoes of the man whom they so loyally serve.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town: My Lords, I have two questions for the Government about their proposal to reduce the number of seats. Do the coalition parties have the same commitment to increasing the number of women in the other House as the Labour Party has had in its various policy documents for some time? Furthermore, has there been any assessment of the effect of the reduction of the number of seats on the likelihood of achieving an increase in the representation of women in the other House?
	The Labour Party has not achieved what a number of us-and I sit by some of them here-have been committed to for a number of years, which is to move from 40 to 50 per cent of our party's representation in the other House being women. It is no secret that even when we came to all-women shortlists it was possible to move on that only when there was a vacancy, because no party was willing to kick out the male representatives to make room for a new shortlist that could be an all-women shortlist. In our experience-I do not think that I am giving away all our secrets, which were probably covered in the press anyway-because we did not have enough retirements, we could not make the progress that we wanted to make on all-women shortlists. There were no vacancies and therefore there were no shortlists, so we could not put women in.
	Noble Lords will understand quickly the concern that women will have that, when we reduce the number of seats, as the Government want, there will be no retirements, only some forced retirements, given that there will be fewer seats. Labour Members may well fight other Labour Members for those seats and I imagine that Conservative Members will fight other Conservative Members for those seats. So there will be very few vacancies. New blood, either men or women, will be extremely hard to bring on.
	My second question, having asked how the parties in the coalition are committed to increasing women's representation, is whether they have done any sort of impact assessment of reducing the number of seats and of what it would mean for the likelihood of bringing on a new generation-partly of young people but even more so of women, which is my particular interest-into the other House.

Lord Desai: My Lords, I always get excited when I see a mathematical formula in a Bill. The formula of U over 598 appears in the Bill. The idea, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said, is to have an arrangement whereby each vote counts equally towards electing an MP. That is a very worthy aim, with which I have no quarrel. It is like a programming problem, whereby you minimise the distance between the sizes of different constituencies, subject to various considerations. That is a perfectly good aim.
	Where I fail to understand the Government's approach is why they are adding another completely artificial constraint by at the same time reducing the total number of seats by 50. You can achieve equalisation of votes and seats and achieve the aim of having each vote count equally with 650 seats. It would be absolutely no problem. It might even make it easier for the Government to achieve their aim if they did that. We already know that they have a problem in having to set aside two seats. There may be many more seats, as noble Lords have said, and other peculiar constituencies that would rather not be broken up or merged. There are lots of constraints that the Government are trying to ignore. If they had 650 seats, they would be able to achieve their aim of reducing the anomaly between the size of the seats and the number of votes required for a candidate to be elected and to solve the problem of all the other constraints, such as the peculiarity of certain constituencies.
	When most other countries redraw boundaries or do redistricting, as it is called in America, to make adjustments for population changes, as happened recently in India and as happens periodically in the United States, they do not change the total number of seats. They change only the drawing of boundaries between constituencies. With a system whereby you are trying to do several things at the same time, you end up with a very inadequate solution to the problem.
	The Government may have a perfectly good, non-political reason for reducing the number of seats to 600, but that has not been stated. One problem that we are facing is in knowing whether the Government's main aim is to reduce the number of MPs, in which case why make the figure 600? Why not 550 or 500-why not half the House of Commons? We do not know. Are the Government trying to increase the load for MPs, which will clearly be a result of this measure? That surely cannot be the aim.
	Are the Government trying to do their best to achieve justice whereby each vote has the same value? Yes. Since every other country that has tried to solve the problem has solved it without reducing the total number of seats, I fail to understand why the Government have added that additional constraint. We could go back to the Boundary Commission solution and adopt it and not put a constraint of 600 seats but try as best as possible to equalise the size of seats and electorates. Then we could see what the number would be. We could see whether we could reduce it slightly within certain limits. That may be possible. Right now we are trying to do something that is very worthy, but the way in which it is being done-hedged in by other constraints-will prove counterproductive.
	Here in this Committee stage we are having a discussion of the various conflicting objectives that the Government are trying to achieve in a very narrow and constricted framework. If the framework had not been so narrow and constricted, the solution would have been much easier.

Lord Wills: I support the amendment, in the sense that I understand it to be a probing amendment about the Government's decision to reduce the size of the House of Commons to 600 Members. I do not have a problem about reducing the size of the House of Commons, but I have a problem when it is not done on the basis of principle and when the process by which the new figure is arrived at has been opaque. That is precisely what we have seen here. In this context, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maples, on a thoughtful and analytical attempt to pursue precisely that sort of argument on the basis of principle. I do not agree with everything that he said but, for the first time that I can recall from the government Benches, we had an analytical approach based on principles, which the noble Lord set out very persuasively in many cases. What I want to know from the Government-and I shall come to this in a moment-is why we have not heard that sort of quality of speech from them on this issue.
	I hope that I am not misrepresenting Ministers when I say that, in previous discussions on this issue, they have rather airily waved aside the question of the size of the House of Commons, as if it was a piffling matter. It needed to be reduced and whether it was reduced by a bit or a bit more did not matter very much. But it really does matter, because the size of the House of Commons shapes the size of each constituency, even more so when we are looking to equalise the size of these constituencies, as this Bill seeks to do, and with certain qualifications. Most Members of both Houses of Parliament would support that aim. The size of the constituency crucially determines the nature of the relationship between the Member of Parliament and their constituents. That lies at the very heart of our democratic arrangements. I have touched on this issue in previous debates and Ministers have more or less ignored what I have said, so I hope that they will forgive me if I spell it out in just a little bit more detail now in the hope that they will now engage with this issue, even if they do not particularly agree with the view that I take on it.
	When I was the Member of Parliament for Swindon North, I used to deal with about 200 to 300 e-mails and letters every week. I was helped by outstanding staff, but I had to deal with those letters and e-mails, as they were on issues of such importance to my constituents that they were not delegated to staff. I was helped, but I dealt with each of them. Most of those letters-around three-quarters, on one estimate that I took about three years ago-came about because of the problems that my constituents had with Swindon Borough Council. Most of the rest were on problems that constituents had with various agencies of central government. Most MPs, including former Members of the other place in this House, will probably have had similar, if not identical, experiences. That casework is detailed and complex, which is why, in the end, I felt that I had to take responsibility and be directly engaged with it.
	It follows logically from that that if any constituency were to be increased significantly in size it would be that much more difficult for any conscientious MP to deal with that casework in exactly the same way. It would be equally hard if further decentralisation of power to local authorities increased the workload of MPs trying to sort out constituents' problems with local authorities, such as Swindon Borough Council. Those facts may argue for even smaller constituencies and therefore more of them. On the other hand, it could be argued that, should decentralisation result in more powerful, effective and competent local authorities-and, indeed, local councillors-it would lighten the casework of Members of Parliament, leaving MPs freer to concentrate on work at Westminster. That might argue for fewer constituencies; I think that the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was arguing for that. These are important issues and he made the case for having a significant reduction in the number of constituencies perfectly well. I do not altogether agree with him, as the work that MPs do for their constituencies is profoundly important in a healthy democracy, but he made a cogent case.
	The crucial point is that we have had no realistic, sensible discussion about how far the ability of an MP to manage their casework effectively and personally matters. This is an important issue for debate. We may come to different conclusions, but proper public debate on this is surely important. Even the Government could not deny it, yet they have denied the public and both Houses of Parliament any proper opportunity to debate it. Moreover, as I have said, there is no question but that the increasingly plural levels of government, with a complex and constantly evolving mix of local authorities, devolved Administrations and national and European institutions, are reshaping the nature of the MP's relationship with their constituents. That must have significant implications for the appropriate size of the constituency and so for the size of the House of Commons.
	I discussed all those issues in the amendment that I put forward last week. I hope that the House will forgive me, but earlier in today's debate a noble Baroness from the Cross Benches-I am afraid that I did not catch who she was-made some comments about that amendment. I fear that she was in danger of misrepresenting my position, so I hope that I will be forgiven if I put on record what my exact position was. She concluded her remarks by asking why we had had that lengthy debate on my amendment, which was then not put to the vote. That was my decision as a Back-Bencher. She then said that Cross-Benchers could be forgiven for wondering what was going on. I will catch up with Hansard tomorrow and perhaps write to that Cross-Bencher as well about this, but perhaps I might inform the Committee what was going on.
	I spent nearly three years as the Minister for Constitutional Reform in the previous Government. I spent a great deal of that time looking at all these issues in great depth-rather more time than the Ministers have collectively had available to them in government to look at them. I thought that it would help this House and its business of revising and scrutinising legislation if I put down an amendment summarising my experience as a Minister in looking at those complex issues. I thought that that would be of service to the House. I hope that the noble Baroness, when she looks in Hansard for my remarks, will agree that putting down such an amendment was helpful. I have no responsibility for the length of time that it took, but it was a long and complex debate because this is a difficult and complex issue. I sat throughout the three and a half hours of that debate and I heard no repetition from any of the noble Lords who took part. My only regret is that there was only one substantive contribution from the Benches opposite. The debate on the amendment could easily have taken longer and it would have been valuable if it had. The fact that it did not is a matter of regret to me.
	Why did I not push that amendment to a vote? I am afraid that I am still fairly innocent in the ways of this House. Various views were being expressed to me, quite vigorously and from all sides, about whether to push it to a vote but I understood quite clearly that, if I put it to a vote and that was lost, there was no opportunity to return to this issue on Report. When I announced that I was not going to push it to a vote-and I hope that the noble Baroness from the Cross Benches, who is still anonymous to me, at least, will look at what I said-I quite clearly said why. I said that, to me, the case for my amendment was still so strong and so much in the Government's own interest-their long-term strategic interest, not narrow, tactical or partisan manoeuvring-that I hoped that they would look again at it and that I would bring it forward again at Report, when I hoped to have a more constructive response from the Government. I still believe that and hope that that will happen.
	I do not think that that was unreasonable. I hope that the noble Baroness will look at those remarks and understand then that what was going on was not, as I fear she was trying to insinuate, that I was plotting in some nefarious way to filibuster and to derail this legislation. I am not, because, as I have said, I am perhaps unusual in this House-on both sides of this Chamber-in supporting the Government's broad objectives in both parts of the Bill. I have no wish to see the referendum on AV derailed. I know that many of my colleagues disagree but I want to support it and, again, have expressed before my broad support for it. I am afraid that I take exception to being accused of somehow trying to derail and filibuster this legislation.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My noble friend will know that I was one of those who were pressing him to have a vote. I have indeed changed my mind because he was, quite rightly, arguing privately that there was a need for the House to have the time to gestate and understand the implications of that amendment. Another reason for changing my mind was that there were a lot of Cross-Benchers in the House-more during that debate than on any other issue that we have discussed on the whole Bill. Some of us realised that it was important that we gathered their support over the following days, this being one of them. I am sorry that my noble friend was criticised as he was.

Lord Wills: I am extremely grateful to my noble friend. All that I ask the Government to reflect on in approaching this is that these issues are profoundly important. They are difficult and complex and there will, inevitably, be valid points of view on all sides on all these issues. If they will not listen to me, I hope that they will take an example from the admirable speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maples. That was the sort of debate of which we could have had far more thus far from the other Benches. In whatever time is left for us to debate the Bill, I hope that we will see more contributions such as the noble Lord's from his colleagues on those Benches.
	Any responsible legislative process would have set out these and all the other relevant issues and then consulted on them and come to a decision on the optimum size of a constituency and so of the House of Commons. Allowing the British people themselves to have a say in this would have been desirable, but the Government have not done that. Instead, they have determined a figure, for which they have failed so far to produce any good reason, and then shaped everything else around it. This is not just a wasted opportunity but a lazy and irresponsible way in which to approach legislation of such importance. It is also damaging to our democratic process-all the more so, I have to say in passing, because of the way in which the Government seem intent on getting this legislation nodded through this Chamber.
	Why have the Government failed to produce any coherent explanation for how they arrived at this figure of 600? It is curious, as other noble Lords have pointed out, that before the election both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats had decided on a figure lower than 600 and had arguments for doing so, which we have heard today from the noble Lord, Lord Maples. So why did they change their minds? There is a coherent case for keeping to the pledges that they made to the electorate before the election. That coherent case was made by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, today. Why did they not stick to it? They will not say.
	In an attempt to elucidate this information, I put in a freedom of information request, as I have already told the House. The last time I mentioned this in the House, I mentioned that I had not yet had a response, but such is the power and influence of this House that the next day I got a response, for which I am delighted. The response that I received from the Cabinet Office, dated 11 January, confirmed that the modelling that I was looking for on the impact of a reduction to 600 and to lower figures exists but that some of that information is being withheld under Section 35(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act. I think that the Government have ignored the existence of Section 35(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, which would remove their justification for exempting the information that I requested, so I have put in a request for an internal review of the Cabinet Office's decision and I look forward with great interest to seeing the results of that review.
	Leaving aside the legislative niceties of this, I believe that the public should know how and why the Government went back on the promises that they made to the electorate at the election and decided to increase the size of their reconstituted House of Commons to 600. The public want to know how the Government think this will affect their relationship as voters with their MPs. I think-and I say this in kindness to Ministers-that the public want to be reassured that, in reaching that figure of 600, the Government were not motivated in any way by the pursuit of partisan advantage. They will want to be reassured about that. The Government must realise that, as long as they fail to come up with any coherent argument for why that figure of 600 was arrived at, the suspicion must remain. They cannot avoid this. I know that it is unwelcome.
	I see Ministers sitting on the Benches opposite and I know that they are without exception decent and honourable men and women. It is with some trepidation that I keep coming back to this point, but they must realise the cynicism that exists about all politicians at the moment. They must realise that the suspicion that they are motivated by nothing but partisan self-interest exists and they should be doing everything that they possibly can to dispel it, so I hope that when the Minister concludes the debate on this amendment he can provide some reassurance about that.
	On Thursday last week, I wrote to the noble and learned Lord's colleague, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, asking whether he could release the information that I had requested. When you put in a freedom of information request, it refers only to work that has been done within the Executive by government, not to work that clearly feeds into the process of formulating legislation that is done by special advisers and Conservative and Liberal Democrat party officials. I have therefore also asked the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in the interests of openness and transparency and of reassuring the public about the Government's motivation in alighting on this figure, whether he can confirm-it may be that the Minister can confirm this in his remarks at the end of this debate-whether any modelling has been done on the differential impacts of different sizes of the House of Commons on the party composition of the House of Commons, either within government or by the Liberal party, the Conservative Party or special advisers. He can confirm or deny it. I very much hope that he will take this opportunity to start clearing up this issue once and for all. It is an important issue and we need to move forward from it. We can do so only if he can provide us with the reassurance for which I am asking.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, I join my noble friend in trying to answer the question he raised about why the numbers have changed from the electoral commitments made by the two parties opposite to the grand round figure of 600. Perhaps the answer may be found in part in the adage of US politics that an election platform is something to run on, not to stand on. I join my noble friend in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Maples. If we are to have a debate, here is someone who has, as always, in a radical and rather wonderfully iconoclastic way made his own contribution to the debate. I hope that there will be a contagion and that Members alongside him will adopt what he said and at least join in the debate, not just on this magic number of 600 but on the way in which this Bill has been handled. I had the privilege of serving with the noble Lord, Lord Maples, for eight years, I think, on the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place, and I can say with deep sincerity that I valued very much the independent, non-partisan contributions that he made. I think that for at least part of the time he was vice-chairman of his party, but he is very ready to join independently in debate. I disagree with one or two points that he made about the numbers, but at least it was an honest contribution.
	When I approached the House this morning, I was reflecting on what I might say, having packed my toothbrush. I picked up, as I normally do, the Daily Telegraph, and came across page 23, which reminded me that today has been called "suicide Monday". The headline is:
	"How to get through Blue Monday"-
	that is today-
	"Lovebomb your partner, take up salsa or sing to the skies-these are just a few of the expert tips for beating the blues".
	Nothing was said about how to face a long, dark night and still be sufficiently alert to make what one hopes will be a coherent contribution.
	I am certainly not wedded to any particular number-600, 650-but the onus, as always, is on those who wish to make a change to make the case not only for reducing the number below 650 but for why this magic number of 600 has been selected. It is not good enough to say, as I think the Leader of the House did, that it is a nice round number. No doubt there will be some advantages, but there will also be many disadvantages, and there is no way in which there has been a testing of the arguments for and against by any independent experts. There is an unseemly haste about the way in which the Government have moved.
	I think a number of noble Lords will remember with affection Lord Weatherill, who was a very distinguished Speaker and the Convener of the Cross-Bench Peers. I see another distinguished Speaker close by. Lord Weatherill began in the family business with an apprenticeship as a tailor. He told me that on the first day he was there, he was apprenticed to an old Jewish tailor who was asked to make a suit from the cloth very speedily. The old, tried tailor said to his boss: "Do you want it quick or do you want it good?". There is a certain lesson for us in legislation. Do we want it quick or do we want it good, particularly when there is no objective reason for speeding along on this? This is not a national emergency or something relating to an external threat or internal terrorism; this is something that the Government have chosen according to their own timetable in a fairly authoritarian way.
	I go back long enough in politics to remember, again with affection, Lord Hailsham. I sat behind him on occasion when he was a very robust and amusing Queen's Counsel. I also watched him in action in the House. At a certain stage, he defined a term-I think it was called elective dictatorship or the dictatorship of the majority. He was, as always, extraordinarily eloquent about elective dictatorship and carried us along quite far. However-surprise, surprise-when he and his party got into government, he forgot all about elective dictatorship. He was there for at least part of the time of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she abolished the old GLC because she did not like it, and when she took away many local government powers. Gone was the eloquence about elective dictatorship. He had a remarkable, almost Damascene, conversion. I hope I can spirit back Lord Hailsham, who I admit was a great parliamentarian and for whom I had great affection.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Does my noble friend know that Lord Hailsham's qualities were hereditary? His son became very similar. When he was a Minister in the House of Commons he refused to answer any questions during Department of Trade and Industry Questions. I was constrained to call him an "arrogant little shit". The then Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, said that I should withdraw. I asked which word he wanted me to withdraw and he told me that I knew. That is the kind of behaviour that we do not want to get into in this House. Is that not a good point to make?

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I have known my noble friend for a long time. We were in a team together for much of the 1980s. I have never known him to be constrained by anything. I am glad to hear that he was at least constrained on that occasion.
	I start with this preliminary point about the style of government. If the Government are serious about democracy and listening to the arguments for and against, they will not juggernaut the Bill through at odd hours of the night when, as my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, there will be a differential turnout in any vote, depending on who is more tired than anyone else. There will not be the sort of objective discussion that we would hope for. I was thinking of paraphrasing Bob Marley about how a hungry man is an angry man. A tired man is not a good legislator. I recall, on one occasion in the other place, having three all-nighters in succession on the Steel Bill. No one, anywhere in the House, can think that the Steel Bill was at that time a proper piece of legislation. However, sheep-like, we went through the Corridor. It was done mechanically, with no serious debate. I hope that, as in the spirit of this place, we will reject that sort of movement.
	Turning to the numbers, the central question, which has not received an answer is: why 600? There is clearly an argument for a certain flexibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has said. Perhaps I can share some degree of experience on this. I had the privilege of representing two very different constituencies in the other place. One was the constituency of Monmouth, which at that time had not been won by my party previously and had been represented by a great parliamentarian, Lord Thorneycroft, although he was not called that then. It was a typical county seat with quite a sizeable electorate. I was able to manage it reasonably well because it was a highly educated constituency. The sort of problems that were brought to me were, as often as not, those of planning permission. I recall one village meeting when there was a question as to whether a local bus should be discontinued. The grandees in the village said, "No one takes the bus anyway. Why should we bother?". Only afterwards did a couple of rather poor people detach themselves and think, "We use the bus". They just did not, alas, have the self-confidence to make that point. That was one constituency, which was quite manageable. If the electorate had been not 75,000 or 78,000 but 100,000, I could still have managed the constituency effectively.
	I then had the good fortune to move to the much safer seat-the electorate chose, not me-of Swansea East, which is a seat of multideprivation. In the schools there are many statemented pupils, and special needs are substantial. Often, folk did not have the self-confidence of those in the traditional county seat. I had been a diplomat or a civil servant for some time, so if nothing else I had learnt how to write a letter. Sometimes I felt that in trying to represent my own people-I was born in a working-class street and brought up in the city of Swansea-I had a role like that of the letter-writer in an Indian village. I was able, because of my privileged background, to write letters on behalf of these people. There has to be a personal touch.
	One of my sons worked for an American Representative. He hardly met this Representative at all because the office was so large. The US Representative had an automatic signing machine. I very much hope that these have not reached Westminster. They have, have they? Certainly, they had not come when I left the other place in 2005, as far as I can recall. It meant that people in his constituency or district received letters that had had no personal attention at all from the Representative. As a matter of honour, I made sure that I was in my constituency on Saturday mornings, sometimes for six or seven hours. I made it a point of honour to walk, as often as I could, through the market in Swansea to meet people and learn about their problems. That local touch is so important. Clearly, as night follows day, the larger the constituencies are, the less there can be that local touch, which humanises government, makes people feel less alienated, and makes them feel that the Government-indeed, Westminster and the whole establishment-are on their side and doing their best to help them.
	Therefore, drawing this odd figure of 78,000 out of the air and stretching it in this way-I think my noble friend mentioned a Procrustean bed-can have malign effects. I am certainly convinced not only of the arguments for democracy generally but of those for fitting an electorate according to the needs of particular people. I fear that this figure of 600-chosen from the air and for which no explanation has been given-will certainly not do that.
	Wales will be hardest hit. I will not dwell on this because I know that other amendments will allow me to wax, I hope rather eloquently, on Wales and my own city. Wales, by any rule, is hit by far the hardest by this proposal. It is likely that the number of seats in Wales will be reduced from 40 to 30. Wales is a relatively disadvantaged part of the United Kingdom. I know that my noble friend Lord Touhig, if he is able to make a contribution and who has experience of the western valley of Monmouthshire, will make the same sort of point. We are relatively disadvantaged; therefore, there is a greater need for that human touch.
	We all accept that, just as the number of seats in Scotland was reduced when primary legislation passed to the Scottish Parliament, the same must happen in Wales when it follows the Scottish precedent. However, there is no case for moving from 40 to 30 seats now. Wales has always been slightly privileged in this way for good reasons and that should continue. I will not develop the point, but my own city of Swansea has three seats at the moment, each one of roughly 60,000 people. If we were to go to an average mathematical formula of 76,000 or 78,000, there would be rather less than two and a half seats in my city. That means that it would have to scrabble around for areas that have no natural affinity with the city but which would satisfy some mathematical formula of 78,000 people. In my judgment, that again ignores the human aspect, but I hope to develop the question in relation to Welsh constituencies rather later.
	In my judgment the Government are going ahead in a rather draconian way. If they want a Passchendaele, they will have a Passchendaele. Lip service is given to accountability but the timetable set for the Bill is not warranted by any objective criteria. Why is it so urgent to get the number of seats reduced from 650 to 600? Is there any objective urgency about that? Is there any reason why there should not be proper debate? Is there any reason why we should not-as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has done-put across our own arguments and perhaps convince one another of the virtue of those arguments? Although an argument might be made in relation to the referendum on the alternative vote-that is a rather orphan concept because no party in this House wants the alternative vote-by no stretch of the imagination can an argument be made for urgency in respect of the reduction of seats, whether it is from 650 to 600 or, under the timetable set by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, from 650 to 600, 600 to 500, or 500 to 400. At least let us debate that. That could well be compensated for in democratic terms by building up the intermediary bodies, be they the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament. Clearly, the English electorates have rejected regional assemblies, but that is another argument. Why not give more powers to local government and try to have more parish councils or urban parish councils? I had the privilege of serving on the first ever urban parish council and in my judgment that was almost as close as one could get to Rousseau's forest clearing of democracy, whereby the people who know one another get together and make decisions related to their locality. Why not have this Bill accompanied by a massive devolution to local authorities-les corps intermédiaires, as the French would say? But no, there is none of that.
	As regards the numerical range 650 to 600, there is a deep suspicion that 600 has been chosen for wholly partisan reasons. I interjected in the speech of my noble and learned friend to say that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. This is not the way in which we in this country carry out constitutional change. The pendulum will swing. Over the years I have frequently lectured on behalf of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I have run groups for new Members of Parliament in a number of African countries such as Somaliland. Apart from urging the case for more female representation in those Parliaments, as I am sure noble Baronesses would accept, one of my themes has always been that the majority should not force through constitutional amendments and should not fix amendments which happen to suit their own interest. When I next have the privilege of lecturing to Commonwealth parliamentarians-it is fair to say that they still, for the most part, refer to our own legislative body as the mother of Parliaments-I will be rather reluctant to talk about the principle that the majority should not fix constitutions in their own interest. There should be proper debate and an independent, outside body to monitor this legislation. It should be done not in unseemly haste but properly. If that is not the case, almost certainly one of those Commonwealth parliamentarians will use this as an example of what should not be done.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, at Question Time this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, asked a very pertinent Question of Her Majesty's Government concerning what proposals there were to limit the amount of legislation that is churned out by government. As far as I am concerned, he was speaking of Governments of all colours. I did not take part in that debate because so many other distinguished Members had more to contribute, but I feel that one solution to the problem is that there should be a general presumption against legislation unless, on a balance of probabilities, that presumption can be overthrown by showing that it is better to have that piece of legislation than not to have it. That would be a not unreasonable test for legislation in the months and years ahead.
	If one holds up this issue to that template, the case against this part of the Bill is very clearly made out. We are told that the number of constituencies shall be reduced from 650 to 600. It seems to me that the arguments that are put in favour of that are woefully inadequate and, indeed, very thin on any account. It is said that it would save £12 million per annum. That is a vast amount of money as far as individuals are concerned but it seems to me that you can never guarantee that £12 million would be saved, or even that there would be any net saving at all, because if you change the rules to that extent one never knows what the costs of the other system-the alternative system-would be unless those have been calculated to a very fine degree, which is not the case.
	The other argument deployed is that many other European parliaments have fewer than 650 Members. Of course they have, because two-thirds of them have a population that is a half, a third, a quarter or even a 10th of our own, so what sort of argument is that? When one compares the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons with the comparable situation in Italy and France, one finds oneself very much on a par. Therefore, it seems to me that there is no real argument at all in favour of a reduction. That, I suggest, is the real issue here-not whether the reduction should be X or Y but whether there should be a reduction at all.
	The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, whose speech greatly impressed me, as always, made it clear that a decision should have been taken on the basis of evidence. He and I have lived in a world where people have been determined on the basis of evidence, and on inferences that can be drawn from evidence. Where is the evidence here? You would not hang a dog on these arguments-the £12-million argument and the argument of comparability with other countries. It is perfectly clear that in the past 60 years the number of Members of Parliament has increased-not by much, by 4 per cent-and that during that period the population has increased by 25 per cent.
	The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, advocates an independent examination by the great and the good. I would dearly welcome that. I made my next point last week and apologise for repeating it but that body might come to the conclusion that there should be a reduction. On the other hand, it might come to a conclusion that there should be more Members of Parliament. As we have heard from many noble Lords, Members of Parliament are far more get-attable in this modern, electronic age than they ever were. I was a Member of the other place 40 years ago, and I had a very literate and, if I may say so, literary constituency. I had to reply in my own impossible hieroglyphic hand to dozens of letters nearly every day. I shudder to think what the situation would be now with electronic communication.
	One does not need any great imagination to ask the question: upon what real evidence is a diminution in the number of Members of Parliament based at all? Is it based on party considerations? I hope not. That would be very unworthy of any of the persons concerned. Is it based upon populism? It may well be. If this issue had been raised perhaps five or 10 years ago, before there was the general opprobrium in which, rightly or wrongly, so many Members of Parliament are held, would the attitude have been the same?
	Some years ago, a distinguished Conservative Member of Parliament was giving evidence to the Boundary Commission. I do not have the exact wording, but I can guarantee that this essentially is what he said: "Some of my colleagues are in favour of reducing the number of Members of Parliament, but I am not". That was Mr Cameron, the Member for Witney. What has changed in the past five or six years? Do the Government really believe that there is a genuine case-a case in reality and in integrity-for a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? It is only the Government themselves who can answer that question; and it is a vital question.
	I make no apology for having taken part in this debate. I wish to mention one matter before I take my seat. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton and I were suspected last week of having taken part in a filibuster. We spoke very briefly. We made very different points. His were at least as good as mine, but they were pertinent to the issue. I do not think that it came within a thousand miles of a filibuster. To my mind, a filibuster is what happened in the House of Commons at the very end of the 19th century. A Member by the name of Tim Healy-an Irishman who was a brilliant Member and was the first Speaker of the Dáil in the 20th century-had spoken for two and a half years-

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Elystan-Morgan: Two and a half hours. To the Speaker of the House of Commons, it may have seemed two and a half years. The Speaker got to his feet and said very politely to him, "Mr Healy, for quite some time now I have been trying to associate your argument with the matter before the House". Healy said: "Mr Speaker, sir, I apologise profusely. In which case, I have no alternative but to repeat the whole of my remarks". Nothing like that has happened in this place, and I certainly, apologia pro vita mea, et the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, plead that we did not come within a thousand miles of doing that.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: What we have listened to for the past hour and a half is a simple question: what is the evidence? Where are the facts? Quite frankly, I am as puzzled now as I was then, because we have heard only one contribution from the whole of the Benches opposite. Perhaps on this side of the Chamber there are more contributions because this House and the other House always relish people who speak from their own experience. What we are discussing is the impact upon not only Parliament but Members of Parliament, if the change takes place.
	We can all speak from our own experience. I became a Member of the Commons in 1974. It is now more than 35 years since then. All I can say is that the workload for a Member of Parliament has grown from the days, for instance, when MPs could say to their friends: "I have to go down to the constituency this month. It is the quarterly meeting of the constituency party and they will expect to see me". There are some constituencies-I will not mention the political party-which relished the fact that their MP did not live in the constituency. Not any more. The demands of the constituency party on the Member of Parliament are such that he not only lives there, but when they want him, they expect to see him there.
	I once sat down to a meal in my first year, in 1974, when I happened to be an official on one of the all-party committees. Our guest was Sir Roy Strong, who lived in my constituency, Edmonton. He said, "Ted, I often see your name doing things in the constituency. That is marvellous. How often do you come there?". I said, "I live there". He said, "How often do you meet your constituents?". I said, "I meet them every day, because I come up from Bush Hill Park station to Seven Sisters and change. I speak to my constituents". He said, "Yes, but what happens about their problems?". I said, "Every Friday morning, I go to Edmonton Green market and they stop to tell me their problems. If they are complicated, I say, 'Come down to my surgery'". He said, "How often do you meet your constituents in the surgery?". I said, "Once every fortnight, without fail; but I deal also with big postbags and small". I said I remembered that I once, from one fortnight to the next, dealt with 100 cases. I listened to them; it was not a case worker or researcher who did that for me. I did it for myself. He said, "That is impressive". He turned to my other colleague and asked, "Do you have something like Ted's record in this?". The other parliamentarian said, "Perhaps I do not go down as often, but I meet my constituents about 15 times a year". I asked, "How does that happen?". He said, "I have five towns in my constituency. Three times a year, the Saturday before Parliament meets, I have a surgery. It is advertised. I am there at 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock. I have five places where I meet my constituents and I am there three times a year each. That is 15 times". I said, "Do you mean that you give up three Saturday mornings?". He said, "Yes, but it is not too far to come to Westminster by train. They can come and see me".
	I reflected upon the different ways in which a constituency MP looks upon his job. Some look upon it as literally being a shepherd-someone who is there to lead the flock, but is always to be there. I listened, as we all did, to the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who obviously spoke on behalf of the whole Back Benches on the government side, because we have not heard another contribution to this debate from them. He made me think, because he said that among his ambitions would be to reduce the amount of money spent on staff for Members of Parliament, who do all sorts of things that other people could do. You cannot have it both ways. If a Member of Parliament needs the assistance that Members of all parties have enjoyed for the past 10 or 15 years and this cannot be sustained, that means that the Member of Parliament will take on a heavier workload. I wonder what the Government are intending to do here. Do they just want to save money? Are they reorganising matters so that they are less costly? What will be the impact and effect of that on the quality of democracy and service that we as parliamentarians give?
	I am puzzled by the silence of the lambs; that was the title of a film that I saw. Noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber are keeping silent, first, because they have been told to. As good party Members, they support their Government. I do not blame them for that. However, at the end of the day they must ask themselves whether this is the way that we should conduct our business. When I was the opposition Chief Whip many years ago, I dealt with four Chief Whips. The noble Lord, Lord Denham-Bertie Denham, a marvellous man-was succeeded by Alexander Hesketh, by the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, and then by a man who was then much younger and more sprightly, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I say without a shadow of a doubt that I never had a problem with any of the four, and nor did they have a problem with me.
	Whenever I was asked outside the House what the Chief Whip does, I would say that he is a last resort for avoiding trouble in the Chamber. I wrote a book called From Tyne to Thames Via the Usual Channels. People asked whether "the usual channels" was an allusion to Tyneside or the Thames. I explained that the job of the Chief Whips, when there was trouble in the Chamber, was to meet, and that I could not recall an occasion when the government Chief Whip of the day was unable to come back and say that the matter had been solved. There was parley: you gave and you took, and there was a settlement. What I cannot understand about the present position is the downgrading of the worth and the quality of the usual channels. I am satisfied that if the government Front Bench wished, they would be able to find a compromise, because at the end of the day that is what the government Chief Whip is for.
	In the last great constitutional debate, in 1998, I spoke on the second night at 2.30 am. I was speaker 184 in a list of 192. That was all done by agreement. Forget the issues: agreement was reached and we were happy as a Government to collaborate in that situation. When I reflect on the Government's intentions, I find it very sad. The two parties have come together as a coalition and each laid down what they want to get out of their agreement. What suffers as a result is the standing and stature of this place and of the Commons. We should not stand for that here. I am a loyal supporter of my leader, of my Chief Whip and of my Front Bench, and I will do what I am asked to do in this situation. However, I cannot help feeling that this is a sad day and that this is a sad Bill. It is one of many and we should not see any more.

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow such a distinguished parliamentarian as the noble Lord, Lord Graham at Edmonton. His remarks exposed the cynicism of the Bill. We are talking in essence about the relationship between the elected Member and their constituents. I am in a unique position as the only Member of the House who has ever taken action to reduce the size of the House of Commons. I was responsible for the legislation that reduced the number of Scottish Members of Parliament following devolution. One reason that I refer to that relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said about the usual channels. It was done as a result of consensus. The only lack of consensus that I found was from my own colleagues, because I was putting a number of them out of a job. However, the importance on a major constitutional issue of seeking consensus cannot be overstated. In this House, as distinct from the other place, we are appointed and not elected Members, so the quest for consensus should be even greater.
	I was very disappointed to hear the Leader of the House criticise our debate the other night on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, on account of the length of the discussion. He implied that there was a filibuster. Frankly, the amendment went to the root of the issues that we must address. It concerned the complete inability of the government Front Bench to answer the question: why 600? If I have asked once, I have asked half a dozen times: why not 500, which is the Liberal Democrat position; or 585, which is the last known position of the Conservative Party? When I probed this with the Leader of the House, he laughed and said that it was a nice round number. That is an affront to democracy, as is the failure to address some of the substantive points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about the need for scientific analysis of the job of a modern Member of Parliament. How much time is needed to conduct constituency work?
	I return to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maples. He is not in his place, but I hope that he might read this tomorrow in Hansard. He referred to the change in the number of Scottish MPs after devolution, when we had 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament. It is interesting that the workload of Westminster Members of Parliament did not markedly change. For a start, constituents are not meant to be experts in the constitution. They would come to whoever they wanted to talk to about issues such as education, social services, the local authority and housing. I worked closely with my Member of the Scottish Parliament. If somebody came to me with a problem, I would not tell them to go away because I was not a Member of the Scottish Parliament. I would take on the case and pass it to my colleague in the Scottish Parliament, and she in turn would do the same to me.
	It was also interesting, following the reduction in the number of MPs, that all of us who remained had to get to know new parts of our constituencies and new people. The workload did not diminish, but changed in nature. I mentioned the other night, after an excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, about ethnic minorities, that I represented a seat that I had been born and brought up in, which was a white seat. I did not take on an immigration case probably until 2000. To some extent, that was because of demographic movement. People moved into the constituency and suddenly I found myself having to deal with immigration matters that I had never dealt with before. I had to deal with matters relating, for example, to forced marriage. The socio-economic structure of the constituency affects the nature of the work that a Member of Parliament does. I had two towns and 19 villages. Most of them were mining communities. In the areas of multiple deprivation, my workload was much greater than it was in the more middle-class areas of the constituency. This was, first, because the confidence levels of my constituents varied according to their socio-economic background. You cannot take a rule of thumb and say, "This is a constituency with lots of trees, so there will not be problems of multiple deprivation". The nature of the workload of a Member of Parliament changes in relation to the socio-economic shape of that constituency.
	One of the reasons why we had devolution in Scotland-I mention this point because it relates to what we will be going through tonight-was because Scotland had a smaller constituency electorate for its Members of Parliament prior to devolution. At the time of the Act of Union, separate legislation was enshrined in our constitution. At the time of devolution, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, was the Secretary of State for Scotland and the then Scottish Office was the equivalent of 13 different government departments. Scottish Members of Parliament might finish an education Bill in the other place and vote at 10 o'clock at night, then start a Scottish education Bill at 11 o'clock that night. One of the criticisms made of the arrangements at the time was in asking how you could you get proper scrutiny of legislation in the middle of the night. Those who have been Scottish Members-I only had a short spell at that-learnt how to scrutinise legislation in the middle of the night. If we need to do it, we will do it.
	I go back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Wills about the pressing need to have some scientific analysis of what should be the ideal size of the House of Commons. It is almost as if people are picking up the pin numbers on their mobile phones in dreaming up the number of MPs that there should be in the other place. There is a need to look at the constituency work of Members of Parliament; there is also a need to look at the parliamentary work of Members of Parliament, whether they serve on select committees or whether they are taking through specific legislation. That is an opportunity that has again been missed. There was an opportunity in this legislation to consider whether people genuinely felt that the time had come to look in detail at the relationship of a Member of Parliament to his or her constitutional and constituency roles. There should have been some proper, defined research on it across the House. It should not be something that has been dreamt up for what can only be defined as an extremely cynical reason.
	This Bill is not about improving the constitution of the United Kingdom. It is about buying off two parts of a coalition. That is one of the real reasons why there is such cynicism about the Bill and one of the reasons why it is an aberration on our constitutional arrangements that we should be criticised for seeking to scrutinise the Bill in such detail. I will no doubt return to this matter again and again. My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton put it into context. If we lose sight of the people whose interests we are here allegedly to look after-the constituents and citizens of this country-then we have done no service to this House and we certainly have done no service to parliamentary democracy.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I rather differ from my noble friends on the Front Bench. I could not support this amendment were they to test the opinion of the House because I do not think that it is right for government to fix the size of the House of Commons, which would be the consequence of this amendment. However, I think that it is a valuableamendment if it has been tabled as a probing one, as we need to get at some principles on how the size of the House of Commons should be determined. Like my noble friends, I have sought in vain so far to understand the principle that is animating the Government's policy in this Bill.
	The Liberal Democrats, in opposition, took a principled position. They proposed that the size of the House of Commons should be reduced to 500 Members but that would be on the basis of their being elected on the single transferable vote system and of more extensive devolution and the creation of regional assemblies. On that basis it was entirely reasonable that they should argue for a reduction in the number of Members of the House of Commons. Before the election, the Conservative Party proposed that there should be 585 Members of the House of Commons, and it was more difficult to ascertain the principle underpinning that proposition. My noble friend Lady Liddell has already referred to the observation of the noble Lord the Leader of the House that a 10 per cent reduction was a nice round figure, just as he said that 600 in the House of Commons was a nice round figure. Both 585 and 600 are nice round figures, but we would all agree that that is an insufficiently convincing basis for introducing a very major constitutional change that would weaken the capacity of the House of Commons and would tilt the system of parliamentary representation by favouring the Conservative Party and disfavouring the Labour Party. We therefore need to find better reasons.
	We have not yet heard any good reasons for reducing the size of the House of Commons. At least the noble Lord, Lord Maples, had a go at trying to persuade us that it would be a good idea. Conservative arguments, such as they are, have been that the House of Commons is expensive and that the British people are overrepresented in the House of Commons compared with representation in other legislatures. Those reasons simply do not stand up to scrutiny. The argument that you should take 50 Members out of the House of Commons to save £12 million is risible. It would be risible even if you would save £12 million, but as a number of my noble friends have already explained, we will not save £12 million because the costs for a reduced number of Members of Parliament serving larger numbers of constituents would be no less. Possibly, when the Minister winds up this debate a little later, he would be kind enough to remind us what proportion of the fiscal deficit is £12 million.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords-

Lord Howarth of Newport: Let me finish my sentence and I will give way. When the Bill was introduced, if I remember rightly, the deficit was running at about £180 billion, so how significant is the saving of £12 million?

Lord Glentoran: I am wondering what the constituents of the House of Commons have to do with this House. Why are we debating the numbers, finance and funding of the other end in this Chamber?

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Howarth of Newport: It is part of the constitutional function of the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation. We are a bicameral Parliament. We have two Houses of Parliament and a duty in that respect. Moreover, the noble Lord is, as I am, a citizen of this country and we are entitled to take an interest in the development of the constitutional structure of this country. It is legitimate for us to raise some of these issues.

Lord Kinnock: Perhaps my noble friend could usefully redirect the noble Lord's perceptive question to the government Front Bench. Perhaps the Government could tell us why there is a Part 2 to the Bill and why, therefore, we are discussing matters related to the elected part of these Houses of Parliament, instead of spending a short time additionally on the referendum and the alternative vote, and providing the Government with their legislation in good time for that referendum on 5 May.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My noble friend is, as always, very wise. It would have been greatly for the convenience of both Houses of Parliament had this legislation been segmented and introduced on the sensible basis suggested by my noble friend.

Lord Campbell-Savours: The intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, was very interesting, because that is the question that is being asked by many Members on that side of the House, but they never intervene during the course of debate. We would welcome an intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Perhaps he would like to embroider his comments, because he would be speaking on behalf of all his colleagues on the Back Benches.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I think I could even be persuaded by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, to sit down a little earlier than I otherwise would in anticipation of hearing him develop his thoughts at rather ampler length. I think that the whole House will look forward to that.

Lord McAvoy: Bearing in mind the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, I remind my noble friend of the point made by the Cross-Bench Peer, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan: perhaps he should start his speech again.

Lord Howarth of Newport: There are all sorts of possibilities. Happily, the Government's business managers have ensured that we will not be excessively constrained for time as we debate these issues, so we can look forward to many noble Lords opposite helping us to understand, if they will, the case for what the Government are doing.
	It is perplexing. Ministers have suggested that the size of the House of Commons has crept up-that phrase was used in previous debates. One hundred years ago, the House of Commons consisted of 670 Members of Parliament; it now consists of only 650, and a few years back, it was 659, as some of my noble friends have already mentioned. It is particularly interesting to see how the ratio of Members of Parliament to electors has deteriorated since 1950. There are now 25 more Members sitting in the House of Commons than in 1950, but in that period the size of the electorate has increased by no less than 10 million. The average electorate per constituency, which was 50,000 in 1950, is 70,000 now.
	I do not know how Ministers can with a straight face tell the House of Commons and this House that the number of Members of Parliament has crept up and suggest that we are overrepresented. We are not democratically overrepresented in this country. Unlike the Federal Republic of Germany, we have no länder; unlike in United States of America, there are no states. Indeed, in all of our political lifetime, we have seen a weakening in local government in this country and a diminution in the number of local authorities. If, as the Liberal Democrats have proposed, there should be a large-scale redesign of patterns of representation at the different tiers of government in this country, you could make a serious case for reducing the size of the House of Commons. Unless and until that is done, you cannot.
	The Government are setting about reducing the size of the House of Commons in a manner that will be to the party political interest of the dominant party in the coalition, the Conservatives, and, at the same time, increasing the size of the House of Lords in order to increase the majority on which they believe they can rely in this House, with no serious attempt to explain to us what the sound democratic principle can be in those processes. That is to let members of the Government open to the kind of criticism that we are more accustomed to hearing levelled at those who wield power in countries such as Kenya, Rwanda or even Zimbabwe. It will be very interesting as we begin to hear what international observers and professional and academic students of democracy in foundations and think tanks in this country and across the world have to say about the policies that we are experiencing at the hands of this Government.
	It is absolutely right to ask two basic questions to try to establish a ground of principle on which to evaluate the Government's propositions. We should ask: what are the requirements of a properly functioning House of Commons and how many people does it need serving in it to acquit itself of those responsibilities; and what are the properties of a Member of Parliament in his or her constituency? Until there has been a serious, rational and, as far as possible, objective analysis of both those issues, we should resist the suggestion that the number of Members of Parliament should be reduced. As we start to examine those issues, I think that we will find that, so far from there being a decent case for reducing the number of Members of Parliament, there is actually quite a strong case for increasing their number.
	I do not want to speak for excessive length at this stage of the evening. We will have further opportunities to examine these matters as our discussion develops so, for the time being, I will not weary the House any longer.

Lord Martin of Springburn: I have listened to the debate on the amendment, and it is the amendment to which I wish to speak, not the Bill in its entirety, although I have expressed concern about some parts of the Bill. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Maples. We shared membership of the House of Commons around the same time. He mentioned finance, the cost of the running of the House of Commons. It might be worth mentioning that when he came into the House in 1983, Denis Healey, now the noble Lord, Lord Healey, was the deputy leader of the Labour Party. The funds available to him were such that he had to share one researcher with another member of the shadow Cabinet. Everyone agreed that that was unjust, and the Short money has now been increased to a fantastic amount.
	That Short money goes on to the costs of the House of Commons. When I left, the Conservative Party in opposition benefited greatly from Short money-I think that the noble Lord would acknowledge that. That was so much so that when the coalition was created, there was deep concern among members of the Liberal party that they would not get a share of the Short money, because that would have a profound effect on how they got researchers for their Front-Benchers. I do not know how they got on with that argument. When noble Members talk about the cost of the House of Commons increasing, they cannot have it every way. You do not get democracy for nothing. Everybody praises the great Portcullis House.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Perhaps I may give an illustration of the poverty of the Opposition at that time. When my noble friend Lord Foulkes and I were in Denis Healey's team, I once travelled with my noble friend Lord Healey, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Defence. We wanted to go to South Africa, which was highly in the news. My noble friend had to travel in economy class with Air Zambia. Those were the straits we were in at the time.

Lord Martin of Springburn: I agree with the noble Lord: it was ridiculous, and it has improved, especially for the Leader of the Opposition.
	When we talk about finance, it should be remembered that in the other place, every honourable Member has the equivalent of two and a half members of staff. That does not come cheaply. Then there are premises. If we were to supply Members' staff with premises here in Westminster, the most expensive square mile in the world, it would be far more costly than allowing them to go to their constituencies to get premises. They cannot get any old premises; there must be security because we have already had members of staff attacked. There has even been a fatality, as one noble Lord on the Liberal Benches will be able to testify. When we talk about the cost of computers and broadband, it should be remembered that it is not free.
	I have spoken about the insecurity of Members of Parliament about the boundary reviews and about giving MPs at least some stability. When people make a career in Parliament, they at least should get the chance to serve for two Parliaments, unless the electorate decide that they should go, before a boundary commissioner becomes involved. I do not think that the reduction in the number of seats, which represents under 10 per cent, is unreasonable. Nor is it unreasonable for a Government to make that decision, whether it is arbitrary or otherwise, and to say, "Look, we have come to this figure and we should make a reduction". The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, described so well the difficult task that she had in putting it to the House that there would be a reduction from 72 to 60 seats.
	However, it was a government decision, a Cabinet decision. It was not a decision of the parliamentary Labour Party that the number would be reduced from 72 to 60. I remember well that just after Tony Blair won, there was the big campaign-"Things can only get better". Things got better and there was a Labour majority. All Labour MPs, some of whom are now here, were called to Dover House. I had a great affection for and remember fondly Donald Dewar. Those who knew him talk of his jokes and his generosity. On the day he told us that we were going to lose 12 seats in Scotland-it was not a collective decision by any of us-I remember that there was a buffet of two sausage rolls and three sandwiches. I said that it was the most lavish redundancy party I had ever gone to. That was how the reduction of seats came about.
	If the Government say, "We have this reduction of seats", someone has to start somewhere. I do not want to see anyone lose their job or position and I hope that the reduction can be phased in, but there are no two ways about it. Down the Corridor, there is terrible pressure on Members of Parliament who want to articulate for their constituents on the Floor of the House of Commons even to be able to speak. I was the Speaker and could not speak for years, but here at least I can speak. It is not so easy to do that down there. There are long-winded Cabinet Ministers who want to hog the Dispatch Box. If they take a while, you can bet your boots that their opposite number wants to take a while. Back in the days before the special arrangement, the Liberals wanted to have their tuppence worth before a Back-Bench Member of Parliament could come in.
	The pressure got so bad that I agreed that there should be a limit of 10 minutes for Back-Bench speeches in order to give people a chance. Even at that length, at the end of a night I would instruct the deputies, "Look, do not have people sitting on those green Benches for hours and hours and not have a say. Split the amount of time that is left and tell the winder-uppers". Another thing about the Front Benches was that there was not only a Cabinet Minister but a winding-up Minister and their opposite numbers. They had long faces if you let a Back-Bencher in instead of them. Sometimes it got down to three minutes for a Member of Parliament to have his or her say.
	Some noble Lords will recall that a good experiment was brought in: namely, the parallel Chamber. The Westminster Hall debates allowed Members of Parliament who were complaining bitterly that they could not speak at least to have the safety valve that they wanted. That idea was taken from the Australian Parliament-the old Parliament learnt from the young.
	The limit on speeches was not popular with some of the old timers. My dear friend Tam Dalyell said, "Michael, I like to develop an argument". I said, "But Tam, it takes you 60 minutes to develop an argument and that's you just getting warmed up". He laughed at that. All those pressures about Members of Parliament not being able to speak for long enough was and still is an indication that the drop in the number of MPs proposed in this amendment might help to ease things and to make more room for speakers.
	Councillors, elected representatives and Scottish Members came to me with problems. Even when I was Speaker, I had a policy that every weekend, except for when I was at the Cenotaph, I would be in my constituency. I enjoyed constituency work and dealing people and their problems. I never turned them away. If they came to me with a problem that related to a devolved matter, I did not take up the matter except to write to the appropriate MSP and say, "This matter was raised at my constituency surgery". As for housing, I would write to the housing director and say, "I have notified this lady that the matter is for her councillor, and she will see the councillor on her next visit". That is how I handled that.
	Members of Parliament make a rod for their own back when they reply individually to every name on petitions that they receive. When I was in the trade union movement, I signed petitions but I did not expect an individual reply. Issuing envelopes in the House of Commons got to the stage where some Members of Parliament were drawing in the region of £13,000 per annum in envelopes. That is not 13,000 envelopes, but envelopes worth £13,000. No elected Member should reply to individual names on a petition. I make that point because people should be represented responsibly. It should not be a publicity gimmick to get your name on every door at every opportunity.

Lord Rooker: I am reluctant to intervene on a former Speaker, but I can assure the noble Lord that when my majority was 495, I dealt with everything. I answered everything and I did not use any subcontractors whatever because that is what people expected. I still did that when my majority was 18,000 because that was how I worked. Every MP does the job in a different way. I do not think that rules can be laid down in the way in which the noble Lord is setting out. However, I agree that I am 10 years out of date now.

Lord Martin of Springburn: I agree with the noble Lord, but if a Member of a devolved Parliament was paid to deal with health, prisons and social work, while the noble Lord quite rightly would not turn a person away he would find a way of notifying his constituent that the democratic process meant that some matters were devolved to another elected Member. That is the point I wanted to make.
	As a trade union officer I noted that no two officers worked in the same way, and it is the same with Members of Parliament. What I am trying to say is that there are ridiculous practices and that I have highlighted one of them. There is no point in honourable Members saying that they are overburdened when they create rods for their own backs.

Lord Campbell-Savours: I have to say to my noble friend that I am slightly disturbed by his comments about petitions. If I remember rightly, my noble friend's constituency was an inner city seat in Glasgow, but what if he had been in a seat in rural Scotland and the village school was about to close and 500 constituents wrote to him about that closure? It would be a highly contested issue in that part of the constituency. Does my noble friend not feel that perhaps in those circumstances each of the 500 petitioners should receive a communication from their Member of Parliament? It makes them feel that they are participating in the debate and that their Member of Parliament is actually responding and not just taking them for granted.

Lord Martin of Springburn: All I can say to my noble friend, as he has called me, is that if three of the names on the petition were from the same household and they were sent three individual letters, something would be wrong. I say as well that something would be wrong if £13,000-worth of envelopes were being used. The point I wanted to make was that something was wrong with that.
	Let me make another point about pressure. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the noble Lord, Lord Graham. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will remember, he was our Chief Whip between 1979 and 1981. I was sad to see him leave the House. He kept us until 10 o'clock on a Thursday night in the Commons. I know that to be the case because a whole load of us went up to Glasgow on the sleeper train. For years now, unless it has changed since the last election, debates on a Thursday are non-voting. That begs the question: is every Member of Parliament right there in the House of Commons, to which they were elected, on a Thursday, or are they elsewhere? I would hazard a guess that they are elsewhere. I am not criticising them because that is their business, but the case has been put that there are more pressures on this generation of Members of Parliament than there were on the old.
	There was a fairly hefty pressure on Members of Parliament, if they were lucky, to leave on a Thursday. The Minister could not even take the sleeper train because of the distance to his constituency. He would not have been able to get back by the Friday. I was lucky enough to get to mine by the following morning. Also, constituency engagements were such that it was not pleasant to travel overnight. You would have surgeries and meetings with various organisations.
	There are other amendments that I can comfortably support, and I know that this is a probing amendment, but there is no point in us being here if we do not express our views. I do not see that we need great academic bodies to do a study on whether we should have a reduction of 10 per cent.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, I am goaded to intervene in this debate because the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that no one had spoken from this side of the Committee today, or that very few had done so apart from my noble friend Lord Maples. I made it clear at Second Reading that I support this Bill largely because of Part 2. I have not been in the Chamber, but I have heard every speech made during this debate because I have been watching it on my computer. I have heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey, Lord Anderson and Lord Graham, who are not in their places, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who is in his place, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in the flesh. I can recommend to colleagues that watching the debate on one's computer is a very good way of keeping up with the debate. I find that each speaker has a good first five minutes. There is no question about that; they put their arguments succinctly. But after that-I must choose my words carefully-there is what I would say is an elaboration of those first five minutes. Very little new is added, so you can switch to doing other things on your computer and return when the next speaker turns up. That way, you get the general thrust of the debate.
	When it comes to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons, I have something approaching an impeccable pedigree in that even when I was a Member of the House, I felt that it was too large. In the 1990s, I made speeches and wrote articles about it, but they, like most of my speeches and articles, have disappeared into the mists of history. Some Members may recall that three years ago I introduced a Bill in this House that sought to reduce the number in the House of Commons by 10 per cent, which would have meant a reduction of 65 Members, not the 50 Members we are considering today. It went through this House with great ease. It got to the other place and was debated, but of course private Bills from Peers die in the House of Commons after a debate.
	During the debate, people asked why there should be a reduction of 10 per cent. Here the noble Lord, Lord Wills, asked why there should be 500 rather than 65 and so forth. When I introduced my Bill, some Members of this House said that a 10 per cent reduction was not enough and that they want to see a 20 per cent reduction, which would have involved 130 MPs.
	I believe that one of the reasons the House of Commons became too large was this. When I was first elected back in 1960, the Commons then comprised 623 or 624 Members. It then grew exponentially for only one reason: the Speaker's Conference of 1917. The conference was held to discuss a reduction in the size of the House to 500. Unfortunately, I should say to the former Speaker that his predecessor at that time was not as particular as he could have been. No minutes were taken of the Speaker's Conference so no one knows what actually occurred. The only thing that did emerge was that as society developed and the population expanded, it was thought to move to an average of about 70,000 constituents per seat. That was why, in my time, the number of seats grew from 623 to just over 650. So I believe that we are over-represented in the House of Commons.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, when the noble Lord talks about the need to reduce the number of constituencies, I suggest that he would have had a very different experience in his constituency of Mole Valley compared with that of a Member of Parliament with an inner city seat, like my noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn. The intense nature of representation of an inner seat is very different indeed from what the noble Lord would have experienced in Mole Valley. I am sure he served his constituents very well, but he should remember that when he is thinking of cutting seats.

Lord Baker of Dorking: I wish that the noble Lord had considered my political career with more care. If he had, he would have known that I represented two inner city London seats, both of which were quite small. I represented Acton, which was very much a working class seat, and St Marylebone, which was not. Both constituencies were quite small, with populations of around 40,000. I then went to Mole Valley which at one time had over 75,000 constituents. I have therefore had experience of representing both an inner city seat with considerable problems, which was the case in Acton, and a large county seat in Surrey.
	The noble Lord, Lord Graham, made the point that MPs are now much more stretched than they were in the past. Both the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and I were Members of the House of Commons in the late 1960s, as I believe was my noble friend Lord Howell. We had no secretarial assistance, no research assistance, no desk and no telephone. We had to sit on the green Benches in the galleries opposite to conduct our affairs, and the only free telephone call we had was to our town clerk. We were also given 800 free sheets of parliamentary paper. After that we had to buy them, as we had to pay for all our post.
	I ask noble Lords on the Labour Benches to wait. Let me develop this agony column for a while before I am interrupted. I do not believe that, in those days, Members acted in any way less significantly to their constituents. The noble Lord is nodding-of course they did not. Indeed, when I had a larger constituency-Mole Valley, about which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, reminded me-I had more than 75,000. I did not have a research assistant and I had only a part-time secretary. Were my constituents disappointed in what I gave them? Not at all; at every election, they returned me with a larger majority.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords-

Lord Baker of Dorking: Wait a moment, please.
	So I do not subscribe at all to the view that having an average seat in the United Kingdom-75,000 under the Bill; mine was slightly larger-would in any way impair the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituents. What it comes down to is that it depends upon the personal activity of the Member of Parliament. Is he prepared to put himself out and deal with the problems of his constituents? Of course he can and today he has infinitely greater technological means than I ever had when I was sitting there without a secretary, a research assistant, a typewriter or a telephone.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: The noble Lord has been talking for more than five minutes. Since I am not listening to him on computer, what can I do?

Lord Baker of Dorking: I am coming to more interesting points. I have only just started on my reminiscences of my time as a Member of Parliament. Let me move on to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who said that we in the United Kingdom are not overrepresented. May I remind the House of the extent of overrepresentation in our lower Houses? We have a population of about 60 million people and 650 or so Members of Parliament. Germany, with a population of 82 million has 600. Japan, with a population of 127 million, twice ours, has only 470. Russia, with a population of 144 million, roughly three times ours, has 450. Can those who are familiar with all the parliamentary activities in these countries say that constituents are any less well served because they have large constituencies? I do not believe that the argument holds up at all.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, "Ah, but they have länder in Germany." He should recall that in three parts of our country we have virtually independent Parliaments. We have, in Scotland, an independent Parliament. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly is a Parliament in all but name and the situation is virtually the same in Northern Ireland, where, in fact, all local matters are dealt with by the representative Members of those Assemblies, in a very similar way to that in the länder. So, international arguments are significant. Therefore, I believe strongly that this is a good measure. I have never put it forward from the view of saving money; I simply believe that the House of Commons can operate very effectively with a smaller number of MPs. I will give way to the noble Lord, because I heard his speech earlier on the computer.

Lord Wills: I am grateful to the honourable gentleman-I am sorry, the noble Lord. I do beg his pardon. He was kind enough to refer to my speech, so, before he sits down, as I sense he is about to do, will he answer this question? He has made his case for it being wholly possible to reduce the size of the House of Commons without any adverse consequence for constituents-I accept that there is a strong case for that-but in deciding on the number to which the House of Commons should be reduced, does he think, first, that the new figure should be based on some broad principle, some broad understanding of the role of Member of Parliament? Secondly, does he think that the public should be consulted on what the size should be?

Lord Baker of Dorking: On the first question, if you look at the history of the development of the House of Commons, it has never been based on broad principles. I remind the noble Lord that in 1707 there were 513 Members of Parliament for England and Wales and that, as a result of the Act of Union, 45 were added-a figure plucked out of the air with a huge overrepresentation for Scotland in relation to its population in 1707. No principle, just practice. With Pitt's Act of Union-disastrous, in my view, but I shall not debate that-which abolished Grattan's Parliament in 1800, 100 Members were added; a huge overrepresentation for the population of Ireland at that time. That overrepresentation was never effectively reduced. In 1922, Northern Ireland received 12 Members, but they did not take away the 88 extra, but only 55.
	So there is no principle; it is a matter of pragmatic sense. I agree entirely with what the former Speaker of the House of Commons said. It is a matter for decision, a political decision at the end of the day. My decision is for a smaller House. I respect the views of Members opposite, but I do not think that we would, in any way, impair the workings of democracy in our country by having a smaller House of Commons.

Lord Touhig: This is the ninth day of the debate and a pattern is developing. We have a Minister who will speak on behalf of the Government and usually, if we are lucky, one Back-Bencher who will speak on behalf of all the rest. Indeed, until the noble Lord, Lord Baker, decided to leave his computer and enhance our democracy by coming to the Chamber and taking part, we had only the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who made a superb contribution. I may not have agreed with many things that he said, but it was certainly a contribution that was not only worthy of him, but worthy of the other side and worthy of the House. It is important that we engage in a proper discourse on this important matter.

Lord Tyler: If the noble Lord does not take too long, I will, I hope, be able to make my usual very terse, succinct and very relevant contribution to this debate. Therefore I am relying on him not to be too lengthy.

Lord Touhig: I am overwhelmed by the noble Lord's modesty and I shall try to reciprocate by keeping my remarks as brief as possible.
	I will chide the noble Lord, Lord Maples, in one way-he displayed an extraordinary ignorance of post-devolution Wales in terms of the work of Members of Parliament. I am sure that he did a fantastic job as a Member of Parliament representing 90,000 people. I did not represent that number, but I can tell him that my workload was no less. Like many who sat in the House of Commons, I worked 70 or 80 hours a week and there was very often a huge amount of sudden extra work. When the miners were successful in winning their case for compensation for diseases acquired working underground, I had 500 constituency cases out of the blue that had built up over a period.
	The work of a Member of Parliament is not being taken into account in terms of the way that the Bill has been constructed. We heard some discussions earlier today about pre-legislative scrutiny. If the Government had engaged in pre-legislative scrutiny, they might have had a better understanding of the workload of Members of Parliament. When I entered the other place in a by-election in 1995, I was told that there was one Member of Parliament who never replied to any letters from his constituents. It was perfectly logical-he said that only a minority wrote to him and it was grossly unfair to the majority, who never troubled him, to write back to those who did.
	That might have been the case then, but it certainly is not the case at the present time. Members of Parliament have huge constituency workloads as well as a huge amount of work in the House as well. Because of the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny, I fear that the Bill does not take account of that. I do not know whether any noble Lords on the Government Benches have done any pre-legislative scrutiny, but when I was Wales Minister I often came to your Lordships' House with a draft Bill to discuss with your Lordships. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, from the Cross Benches, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, a former Welsh Secretary, always made important contributions to help us improve the quality of legislation. That is what pre-legislative scrutiny allowed us to do and it is sadly lacking in this legislation.
	At the end of last week there was a brief debate on a Question from the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, about the conventions in this House. I think it is right, from time to time, to remind ourselves that there are proper ways to behave and to discuss and debate in this House and I have no complaints about the points that he raised. What greater convention can there be than the role of this House to defend and safeguard the constitution? That must, surely, be the most important of conventions and must be what we ought to do. I refer noble Lords to the Companion, where it says:
	"The House of Lords is the second Chamber of the United Kingdom Parliament".
	That is a bit of news, perhaps, to one or two Members on the other side. The Companion continues:
	"As a constituent part of Parliament, the House of Lords makes laws, holds government to account, and debates issues of public interest".
	That is why we are giving the Bill the kind of scrutiny that we are. This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; it is not Zimbabwe, and we do not need a Government who act like Robert Mugabe in pushing through legislation on which there has been no consultation and for which there was no widespread support across the country before it was put to Parliament.
	The Bill will mean that almost boundary of every constituency in the United Kingdom will be withdrawn, and is a triumph of arithmetic over accountable democracy. Those who say that the only way to have a proper and fair electoral system is to have equal-sized constituencies are missing the point. Why is that the only argument? There are all sorts of others. We will go into the issues relating to Wales later, but the Government have already accepted that there should be exceptions to that with Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles. I will make a case later on-I do not know at what hour-about consideration for Wales.
	The fundamental point that has been missed but that is coming out from a number of speakers in this debate is that, because of a lack of pre-legislative scrutiny, no proper account has been taken of the workload of Members of Parliament. I am not against reducing the number of Members of Parliament if that is appropriate. That is proper and fair. It is right that we should take stock and judge from time to time whether the numbers are right. Without any proper consultation and discussion, the figure of 600 is flawed-we have no scientific basis or proper research to show how it has been arrived at. That is a folly and a great disrespect to our democracy.
	I can only echo the point made by my noble friend Lord Boateng when he spoke last week very powerfully about what we would say if one of the countries of the British Commonwealth had a newly elected Government that used their power in that country's Parliament to reduce the number of seats in that Parliament and thereby harm that nation's democracy. We would have plenty to say, and rightly so.

Lord Tyler: I want to contribute only very briefly. I echo what my noble friend Lord Baker said earlier about the experience that some of us had some years ago. I do not go back as far as he does in parliamentary experience, but when I was elected in 1974 there was very limited support for the Back-Bench Member. I remember that well.
	What has been interesting about this debate is that a number of colleagues-from both sides of the House, as it happens-have contributed on the basis of their experience of the other place. With the exception, I think, of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, every one of the speakers has spoken with that experience and authority.

Lord Lipsey: May I correct the noble Lord? I was never in another place.

Lord Tyler: I am so apologetic. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness made this point earlier: we have all experienced the noble Lord's considerable contribution so we have all assumed that he must have had such influence in the other place behind the scenes that he was, in effect, an ex officio Member.
	My point is that over the past two hours and 46 minutes I have taken the opportunity to read the Third Reading debate in the other place. These are the real, live witnesses of the experiences of current Members of Parliament, and they have been able directly to influence the Bill, taking up the big issues, as they see them, on the basis of their practical experience. They did not spend two hours and 46 minutes discussing the reduction-

Noble Lords: There was a guillotine.

Lord Tyler: No, they could have done so if they had wanted to. In the Third Reading debate there was one mention of the reduction from 650 Members to 600. They did not see this as a big issue. The spokesman from the Labour Party's Front Bench did not mention the issue. Why is it that your Lordships are more conscious of the strain and stress on current MPs than are MPs themselves? I am mystified by this. The only possible rational explanation is, as was pointed out earlier, that this House is enjoying itself and extending debates quite unnecessarily. With that, I am sitting down and finishing.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Before the noble Lord sits down-

Lord Tyler: I have sat down.

Lord Winston: My Lords, perhaps I may interject, although of course I have not been a Member of the other place either. This aspect of the situation strikes me as odd, and perhaps noble Lords can explain it. In every other branch of employment that I have been involved with-in education, running an embryology laboratory, running a research laboratory, running nurses within the National Health Service organisation, looking after doctors and appointing them to a particular service within the NHS-we have tried to ensure that we employ the number of people who are needed to fulfil the employment that is there. As I understand it, no one in the discussion on the Bill seems to have actually asked the important question that some of my noble friends are asking: what is a Member of the House of Commons required to do in terms of his duty in caring for his constituency and representing it? Unless we can answer that question, it seems impossible to arrive at a satisfactory number for him to represent in a constituency.

Lord Soley: When I come to the next amendment, Amendment 59, I want to focus on how we decide the size of Parliament, which I think is a critical issue-more important than the numbers. One of the strands running through the debate is the question, "Why 600?". The Government have not answered that, although they have a duty to do so.
	I start from a position similar to that of my noble friend Lord Wills. I have argued before that there is a case for reducing the size of the House of Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, expressed a similar view. Although I do not agree with all that the noble Lord said, there is a case for it. I seem to remember the noble Lord, Lord Baker, arguing the same thing when we were both in the House of Commons. No doubt he will correct me at some stage if I am wrong, as I may be on this, but I think that he argued at the time that the size ought to be agreed by all parties concerned. That is one of the important principles that we will come to.
	The issue of the figure of 600 puzzled me, and I began to look at the background to this. The issue is not new; there has been a debate about the size of Parliament for years, as people have mentioned, but it became more intense in the early part of this century. One of the people who put it in perspective was the Conservative MP, Andrew Tyrie, who in 2004 wrote the Conservative Mainstream document called Pruning the Politicians. After the expenses scandal the phrase became "culling the politicians", which says a lot about the strength of feeling on the issue. It bubbled away along the lines of the arguments in that document. In an article in the Independent in March 2008, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, argued that we should cut the figure by 150.
	Andrew Tyrie's document is well argued. I do not agree with a lot of the statistics in it, where I think he has left things out about the nature of how other countries represent people within their borders, but he makes a good case for reducing the size of Parliament. However, he does two things that are very important, and I hope we will cover them more fully in the following debate on my Amendment 59. First, while he does not say that there should be all-party agreement, he says that the changes should be agreed with the Labour Party; I would change that to "agreed with all parties". Secondly, he says that if you reduce the size of Parliament, you must reduce the size of the payroll vote as well. That is very important but is not dealt with in the Bill.
	My problem with the numbers issue is that, whatever number you choose, whether it is 600, 650, 550 or whatever, it is like pulling on a loose cord on a jumper-if you pull too hard, you suddenly find that you are wearing only the sleeves. The problem is that the number in your Parliament affects a whole range of other things in your constitution. That is why this issue is so important and is a constitutional matter, and it is why I would have liked the Government to have accepted the amendment of my noble friend Lord Wills, which was drawn up by someone who had the experience and knowledge of Government to do just that.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My objection to the present proposal is the evidence that the Government are relying on for the figure of 600; indeed, some people are suggesting a figure in excess of that. Should that not be tested by evidence? Is there not a clear case for an inquiry into this issue?

Lord Soley: I think that my noble friend is anticipating the debate on the next amendment, which stands in my name. A lot of the debate within the Conservative Party arises from the document written by Andrew Tyrie. It is a good document and worth reading, but the interesting point for me is that he argued that the number of MPs should be reduced by 120-that is, by 20 per cent-and that that reduction should be carried out over 10 years in two five-year periods. That is where the figure of 60 comes from-it was going to be the amount of the reduction in the first five years. I forget which noble Lord intervened to question whether this was a matter for the House of Lords, but one reason why it is a matter for the Lords is that there is a clear statement in Mr Tyrie's document that the redundant MPs, as I think they were described, could be sent to the House of Lords. Of course, when you reduce the number of MPs, you have a big fight over who inherits the constituency and what the constituency boundaries are. The suggestion was that those who did not succeed in retaining a seat should be considered for a peerage. Therefore, there is some background to this matter.
	The interesting point is that that figure of 120 was quoted quite frequently. I do not know where Nick Clegg got 150 from-he seems to have plucked it out of the air. However, the thing that troubles me most, and the reason why the number is important, as well as the way in which we decide these things-a matter that we shall come to when we deal with the next amendment-is that the figure of 60, mentioned in this document and in subsequent speeches by David Cameron when he was the leader of the Opposition, relates to the advantage to the Conservative Party in terms of winning more seats. It was not put like that directly. It was said that there was unfair representation and that the Labour Party had too many seats. The other reason given was finance.
	However, for the moment let us focus on the fact that Andrew Tyrie based his conclusion on the number of electors in an area. He argued that a vote in one area was not worth as much as a vote in, say, a Labour constituency because of the number of electors in the constituency. However, as has been pointed out in many previous debates on this matter, everything hinges on voter registration and the socioeconomic factor of turnout. Those things matter, but the problem is that Andrew Tyrie does not take them into account. The Committee may be pleased to know that I am not going to go into great detail about MPs' constituency work but, as we know, there is a difference in a constituency where, regardless of who represents it, registration is much lower. In many cases, the MP will be representing people who are not on the register.
	Perhaps I may refer briefly to my own experience of this matter. Very few research projects have been carried out on MPs' constituencies. One such project was carried out on my constituency over a period of a year and it threw up two things that are relevant to this debate. One was that an awful lot of people would say, "I supported you", but, when you looked at the electoral register, they were not on it. In other words, what they really meant was, "I supported Labour", or, if it was a Conservative MP, they would have said that they supported the Conservatives. However, that did not necessarily mean that they voted, because often they were not on the register. At times, that situation applied to 50 per cent of the people who turned up at my advice surgeries.
	Another thing troubled me, and this is why I think that there is a case for looking at how MPs do their job and the numbers involved. Whenever anyone came with a council problem-my noble friend Lord Martin referred to this-we asked why they had not gone to see to their elected councillor first. Almost invariably, the answer was, "I thought I'd go to the top". In other words, people view political power as a sort of pyramid. They think, "The MP's at the top, so I'll go and see him". I have always been troubled by this problem of undermining local authorities. It is one reason why I began to question whether there are too many MPs. If you take cases away from elected councillors, you are in effect saying to them, "You don't have to do your job. I'll do it for you". That is undesirable. However, if you go down the road of saying that MPs should not take council cases or Scottish Assembly cases or whatever and you enhance devolved power-something that I greatly support-you then have to ask: who does the MP represent?
	One reason why I have been tempted to go for a smaller number of MPs is that, particularly over the past 40-odd years, MPs have largely become councillors and social workers, and that is not desirable. At the same time, MPs have paid less attention than they might have done had they had more time to the national and international issues with which our Parliament is rightly concerned. Therefore, there is an imbalance.
	That takes me back to the central issue, which is that I am passionately against the Bill as a constitutional Bill. If you are going to change the number of Members of Parliament, first you have to take account of certain important key factors and the process by which you make that change. As I said, I shall come to that when we debate the next amendment. Secondly, the number has to be decided on a rather better basis than that the Conservative Party will do rather well if 60 seats are knocked out.
	Much earlier today, someone said to me, "Well, we changed the number of people in the Scottish Assembly", or the other Assembly, "and we didn't make such a song and dance about it". To that I say that, if you change the size of a House of Parliament without the consent of all the parties, and some parties, rightly or wrongly, believe that that enhances the position of one party, then, if they are right, the chances of those other parties forming a Government are reduced. The crucial difference between Parliament and the Assemblies around the United Kingdom is that, if you win a parliamentary election in Britain, you can change all those other things. You can change an Assembly or even get rid of the Assembly in Scotland if you like. There would probably be a riot by my noble friends here if you did that, but you would have the power to do it. However, if a political party's chances of winning as well as it would have done are taken away from it, something much more fundamental is being changed. It is on this sort of point that this Bill is different from a normal constitutional Bill. A constitutional Bill that, for example, removes the judges from Parliament and puts them in a Supreme Court can be reversed by a future Government, but future Governments have to be elected via a system in which people have confidence.
	This is a matter for the next debate but I hope that I have gone some way towards explaining where this figure of 60 MPs has come from. It originated very much in Andrew Tyrie's document. It is argued as being a first step, but I should like to know from the Government whether the second step is still under consideration. If the first step was to bring about a 10 per cent reduction in the first five years, instead of, as was originally suggested, 20 per cent in 10 years, will we have in the next Parliament, if the present Administration continue, another Bill like this one reducing the number by another 10 per cent?
	That is what is so dangerous about the Bill-we do not really know what the agenda is. We know that the figure of 60 has been discussed within the Conservative Party over the past eight or nine years, or probably longer. We also know that 20 per cent was the initial figure and that it was then reduced to 10 per cent-that is, 60, give or take a few-over a five-year period, and the document talks about how the political parties should adjust their reselection processes to allow that to happen. As I indicated, MPs who lost their seats would then be considered for a peerage. However, this is a wholly different agenda and one that I find rather uncomfortable. I am willing to support this amendment because of the next amendment, which stands in my name. As I said, I think that the way in which we do these things is more important than the number, but if we are to have a number, this one would do very well.

Lord Davies of Stamford: My noble friend has done a great service to the Committee by bringing to our attention the pamphlet of Andrew Tyrie-I remember it coming out, but I think that it has since slipped the memory of many of us. As he said, Andrew Tyrie laid down as a condition of a reduction in the number of MPs a proportionate reduction in the payroll vote in the House of Commons. Is it not the case that the Government have no intention as far as we know of reducing the size of the payroll vote but are going in the opposite direction? When I was in the Ministry of Defence, I thought that we could do better with one fewer Minister. Although the Government have come through with utterly irresponsible cuts in defence capability, they have increased the number of Ministers by one. That is quite extraordinary and shows that the Government are moving in totally the wrong direction.

Lord Soley: My noble friend puts his finger on a critically important point, which I want to cover, along with other related issues, in Amendment 59.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Before my noble friend sits down, will he comment on the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who said that there had been no debate on the figure 600 at Third Reading in the House of Commons? I have with me Hansard from 20 October 2010. It shows that the debate started at 5.29 pm-

Lord Tyler: My Lords-

Lord Campbell-Savours: I am intervening on my noble friend; I was asking him to comment on this matter. The debate started at 5.29 pm and ended at 9 pm. That was under a guillotined proceeding on the Bill.

Lord Soley: I do not have detailed knowledge of that matter, but I know that my noble friend pays great attention to these things. I also know, not least from letters that I and, I think, others have seen, that Conservative MPs complained that insufficient time had been allowed to discuss issues relating to the size of constituencies. I shall give way to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I just hope that I know enough about this issue to be able to give him an answer.

Lord Tyler: My Lords, I have the greatest respect for both noble Lords, with whom I have worked in the past, and I would hate either of them to mislead your Lordships' House. I referred very specifically to the Third Reading debate, when any issue could be raised, and the fact is that nobody raised this matter for more than one minute. The spokesman on the opposition Front Bench did not refer to it at all. I simply said that I thought that MPs might be better witnesses on this issue than Members of your Lordships' House, however distinguished.

Lord Soley: I shall say only two things in response. First, far too little time was given in the House of Commons-I do not think that there is any dispute about that. Secondly, my predicament here reminds me of the film "The Go-Between". The person who was the go-between suffered psychologically, and I am already feeling vulnerable.

The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords-

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My Lords-

Noble Lords: Bishop!

The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, I was going to end this very brief speech by saying that I thought that it was now time, as we entered our fourth hour of debate, for the Minister to respond. If the House will bear with me for less than the five minutes that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, would allow me, perhaps I could make a comment as someone for whom the other place probably means the General Synod of the Church of England rather than the House of Commons.
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, who is not in his place, that the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny and the speed with which the Bill is being put forward, with 5 May as a date to work towards, cast an unfortunate shadow over the whole discussion. However, the thought that, if there had been that scrutiny, all parties would reach agreement on such a contentious issue seems exceedingly fanciful. At the end of the day, a judgment has to be made. The fact that the Prime Minister made it quite clear that this would be among his proposals seems to undermine the criticism that it is profoundly undemocratic.
	I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, is not in his place, because his speech was important, indicating that there is a tendency in our society towards mission creep in all sorts of areas, not least in the role played by Members of Parliament. Something that has not been mentioned in the debate so far but which is very important is the development of the internet. If we go back over a long period, as we have done in our debates, we see that the relationship between constituents and their Members of Parliament was totally different before modern communications developed. Any reflection on the ideal size of a constituency must take into account a completely new arrangement. It means in some ways that individual representation of an area is not so important, as an MP can communicate with people very much faster and multiply those communications to a large number of people.

Lord Wills: Does the right reverend Prelate recall that the Prime Minister's commitment during the election was not to a figure of 600 but to a lower figure? That is the source of so much unease, certainly on this side of the House.

The Lord Bishop of Chester: I think that it was to a 10 per cent reduction. I suppose that I am used to nice round figures from the Bible, but that is another matter altogether. If it was a radically different figure, the noble Lord's point would have greater power.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I was going to coin a phrase and talk about a "preferential option for the poor". Are not the most vulnerable less likely to have access to the internet than the more prosperous? If the right reverend Prelate wants in our democracy to relate to the less privileged, does he not agree that the old ways are probably the best?

The Lord Bishop of Chester: In the year of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, I am sure that the old ways often are the best. My only point is that the arrival of the internet has changed much and that that should be the subject of reflection. However, the thought that an agreement would be reached by some scientific, objective process is fanciful. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, wisely said, there is a judgment to be made. My judgment is that, into the fourth hour of this debate, the law of diminishing returns suggests that the Minister should now speak.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My Lords-

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords-

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My Lords, I am pleased to take the cue from the right reverend Prelate, because it is fair to say that, while not everyone has yet had the opportunity to speak-

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords-

Noble Lords: Order!

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My Lords, I think that the cue was given to me by the right reverend Prelate and I intend to respond to it. I think that the Committee has heard sufficient-

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Does the Minister not recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not had the opportunity to make his intervention?

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: When I rose earlier, there seemed to be a mood that I should perhaps give way to the right reverend Prelate, which I was happy to do-

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords-

Noble Lords: Order!

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: But, equally, I think that there was feeling around the Committee that the time had come when this matter-

Lord Bassam of Brighton: This is an iterative conversation. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not made a contribution to this debate. It is entirely in order for him to speak at this particular moment.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My Lords, it is entirely in order for me to speak at this moment. This being a Committee of the House, no doubt the noble Lord can speak afterwards. I do not think that anyone would suggest that it is not in order for me, having heard three hours and 10 minutes of the debate, to try to respond to some of the points that have been made.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said that, being a theologian and a bishop, he was used to round numbers. I am only delighted that I do not have to argue a case for increasing the size of the House of Commons to 666.
	The proposal of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is for a House of Commons of around 650 seats rather than the 600 set out in the Bill. His amendment would not, however, set a fixed size for the other place; he used the word "anchored", which is different and relates to the fact, as one or two noble Lords have indicated-possibly even the noble and learned Lord himself and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey-that there has been, over a period of years, a ratcheting up in the number of Members as the present arrangements are applied. It is possible that that could continue under the system proposed in the amendment, although the number would start at 650.
	We are entitled to draw attention to the executive summary of the report that the British Academy commissioned on the Bill, which indicates:
	"This new set of rules that the Boundary Commissions must apply is clear and consistent, and will ensure that equality of electorates predominates in defining Parliamentary constituencies while the frequency of redistributions will ensure that general elections are not held in constituencies defined on electoral data as much as 18 years old."
	The Bill's proposal that the number of seats should be fixed such that the number could not increase over time is one benefit that will flow from our proposal.
	I got the sense from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, that there is some anxiety that, somehow or other, our proposal is a deeply partisan measure that is based on secret modelling. Therefore, let me just answer the points that have been made about the fact that the Conservative Party's manifesto suggested 585 constituencies and my party's manifesto suggested that the number should be 500. As was clearly explained by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, the Liberal Democrat proposal for 500 constituencies was in the context of a single transferable vote and much greater devolution to the regions of England. That perhaps answers the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, as to why the two parties did not simply split the difference. We would not be comparing like with like.
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said, an indication to reduce the size of the House of Commons was fairly clearly set out by the Conservative Party in its manifesto. Although we took a different approach in wanting a different voting system, a theme of my party's general election campaign was nevertheless that there should be a reduction in the size of the House of Commons.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, indicated-I hope that I have noted him correctly-a reduction of less than 10 per cent is not unreasonable, nor is it unreasonable, as he said, for the Government to propose a number. He also noted that a previous Government decided to reduce the number of Scottish Members of Parliament. I remember arguing for that in the Scottish Constitutional Convention when the proposal was resisted by the Labour Party, but, to the Labour Party's credit, the change was proposed in the White Paper and subsequently enacted by the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke.
	It is a question of judgment as regards the figure of 600. We are mindful that Members in the other place must be able to serve their constituents and that the House must be of sufficient size to be able to carry out its functions effectively. My noble friend Lord Maples argued-and has tabled an amendment to this effect-that the number should be further reduced, ultimately to 500, in two stages. I think that I am right in saying that my noble friend previously proposed a Private Member's Bill to that effect when he was a Member in the other place and has argued his case for some time. However, we believe that, in a House of 600, over a third of MPs will have constituencies within 5 per cent either side of a quota of 76,000. If there were only 500 seats, the constituencies would range in size from 86,000 to 95,000-only three Members have constituencies of that size at present. We believe that a House of 500 could lead to seats that would be of a less manageable size for Members and constituents alike. Moreover, to have two substantial reductions in two successive boundary reviews would, we believe, be unduly disruptive.
	As I have indicated previously, there is nothing magical about the number 600. I have also sought to indicate that, given that both parties in this Government were committed to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons, 600 is a number that we believe, as a matter of judgment, will allow the Members to serve their constituents, will provide a sufficient size for the House of Commons to carry out its functions and will have a perhaps less disruptive effect than a larger cut might have, given that a third of constituencies are currently within the band of 76,000.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wills, sought reassurance that there was no political jiggery-pokery in our proposal. That view has also been reflected by a number of noble Lords. In an answer to a Parliamentary Question from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, my noble friend Lord McNally has said:
	"No modelling of the effect on, or implications for, political parties of the reduction in the number of seats in the House of Commons has been undertaken by Ministers, civil servants or special advisers. In framing the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, officials calculated the number of seats that might be apportioned to each of the four parts of the UK using the electoral register as of 1 December 2009. Consideration was also given in framing the Bill to the amount of time that parties might require to select candidates for election.".-[Official Report, 23/11/10; col. WA 304.]
	In other words, the Boundary Commission should be able to report by October 2013 to allow candidates and local parties to reorganise and select candidates for an election in May 2015. Those are all very practical, proportionate reasons and this has all been approached in a very reasonable way. I hope that I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that the number was not changed because of some modelling that the Government did to try to improve the benefit. Indeed, a number of noble Lords in previous debates have indicated that, on their figures, the Bill would not actually benefit any of the parties particularly well. I hope that that puts into some kind of context the suspicions that have been voiced in this debate.

Lord Wills: The noble and learned Lord is right that the Answer goes some partial way towards reassuring me, but I am afraid that it does not go all the way because he has not actually answered all the questions that I asked him. I also asked him about modelling that might have been done by the Conservative Party or within the Liberal Democrat Party. Can he confirm or deny that point? Equally, if he wants to have a look at the issue-I will accept his own reassurance on this, just as I accept the reassurance given by his colleague the noble Lord, Lord McNally-and make inquiries of those political parties and then come back to me, I would be perfectly happy with that. Can he address those particular questions now please?

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: I seem to recall that I started to get into this territory last week on the same circumstances. I was quickly told by a noble Lord opposite that I speak here for the Government rather than for an individual political party. I am unaware of any modelling that shows a political bias to the Labour Party or the Conservative Party and I am certainly unaware of what bias there might be to the Liberal Democrats. I have reflected on the point that both coalition parties were committed to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons and, although that pledge was qualified by the context in which it was made by the Liberal Democrats, I think that there is a general view that that should be the direction of travel.
	Another issue that has generated considerable debate is the relative increase in the workload of Members of the other place. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, called for some scientific analysis of that, but my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking indicated that, in his experience from having been first returned as a Member of Parliament in the 1970s, I think, there is a considerable difference in the resources that were made available to Members of Parliament by the time that he left the other place. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned that there are now opportunities for Members of Parliament to communicate electronically with their constituents in a way that has never been possible before. It is a continually changing scene.
	For me, the reason why a scientific analysis could never bear fruit-apart from the fact that it would produce 650 different responses-was evident in the exchange that took place between the former, esteemed Speaker of the other place, the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, and the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, indicated that, as a Member of Parliament post devolution, if he received an issue that was properly the matter of the Scottish Parliament, he passed it on to the MSP or, if it was a council matter, to council officials. He also said that he did not answer everyone on a petition. Frankly, having been a Member of the other place-indeed, for a short time, I was the Member of Parliament for Shetland but not the MSP for Shetland-I would have done exactly the same in those circumstances. I do not think-although I may have done so once or twice-I generally made a habit of responding to everyone on a petition. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, immediately took issue with that point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If two very senior former Members of the other place can take issue with the position of the former Speaker of the other place and both sides are being absolutely honest in their approach and about how they would do their work, how in the world is anyone going to quantify or evaluate what the workload of a Member of Parliament should be? There would be a wide divergence over what individual Members of Parliament think should be the case.
	At the end of the day, the judge and jury in such matters are one's constituents, when one seeks re-election. They know how well a Member of Parliament has represented their interests over the previous lifetime of a Parliament.

Lord Winston: The noble and learned Lord has addressed the question that I was about to ask. Is it not the constituents who matter? Is not that one of the issues with which we are faced? Should we not try to assess this in a more rational way? I do not really think that the analysis needs to be scientific, but it should be based on evidence. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, cited Germany and one or two other places, where there is a completely haphazard and arbitrary method of representation. Perhaps if we were to have a really satisfactory Parliament, we would try to research what would be ideal to ensure that constituents are represented and looked after better.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: In my experience, different Members of Parliament have different ways in which they think they should address their constituents' problems and issues. It would be invidious to say that one was right and one was wrong, because different people can take a different approach. That may relate to the character and personality of the individual Member of Parliament, which may also determine what is right and what is wrong. At the end of the day, the constituents should decide.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: Is not the different behaviour of the Members of Parliament determined by the size of their majority? When I had a majority of 503, I would have written to everyone whose name appeared on a petition. If you have a safe seat, you take a different view. Generally speaking, I think that all Members of Parliament work for their constituents, but it does not half concentrate the mind when you have a small majority.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My noble friend makes a good point. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that he honed his skills when answering every petition when he had a majority of about 400, although he said that he also did so when he had a majority of 18,000. That just shows that there are different approaches. I do not think that anyone has the answer for what is absolutely right and what is wrong, but a scientific inquiry would not find an answer either-other than possibly 650 different answers.

Lord Campbell-Savours: On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, if the issue is that in safer seats the whole process of representation is conducted in a different way, surely there should be an evaluation as to what extent there would be considerably more safer seats arising out of a reduction to 600. If it could be shown that there would be more safer seats, that may be a very strong argument against the change.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: Even given a very short time to think about that point, I think that that is something of a non sequitur. There may be other ways in which we want to debate having safer seats.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked how the gender balance would be affected by the proposals. The equality impact assessment attached in an annexe to the Bill suggests that the effect would be neutral, but it is fair to say for the record-she asked about the commitments of the respective parties to diversity-that the Liberal Democrats have instituted a campaign for gender balance to provide encouragement and support, through a range of training, for women who are standing or considering standing for Parliament. The Conservative Party has a five-point positive action plan based on clear principles to guarantee that more women and ethnic minorities are selected for winnable seats. More pertinently, I recall from debating the Equality Bill in this Chamber before the election-now the Equality Act-that there are now specific duties on political parties.
	Someone asked about the timing of the measure and suggested that it was not so urgent. However, if the Boundary Commission is to get on with its work of making proposals and recommendations in a report by 1 October by 2013 so that the 2015 general election can be fought on boundaries using an updated constituency electoral register, clearly there is a timing issue here as well.
	I conclude with the words of my noble friend Lord Baker that these proposals to reduce the number of MPs to 600 would not impair the workings of democracy in the United Kingdom by having a smaller House of Commons. I commend that view to your Lordships' House and, on that basis, ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: The Minister, in his final sentence, dealt with the point that I wanted to make, which has not been made during the whole debate so far. I am not in favour at this stage of having a fixed figure at all, whether it be 600, 650 or even 500. We should give some flexibility to the Boundary Commission, particularly the Boundary Commission for England. With regard to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, in the past figures have been allocated-a minimum figure for Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland-but not for England. The Boundary Commission has sensibly taken account of natural boundaries and community interests and come up with relatively sensible proposals. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative-even more so, given some of the other provisions in the Bill-that we give the Boundary Commission some flexibility, so that when it goes through these provisions it looks at natural boundaries and listens to community interests, although sadly it will not be able to do so at hearings now, and take some account of them. Later there is an amendment that says that the Boundary Commission is looking at these constituency boundaries and should start with the largest. I put down an amendment saying that it should start with the smallest. If you give the commission a straitjacket, it will be even more difficult, whether it starts with the greatest or the smallest or starts in the north, south, east or west. That kind of provision gives the commission a straitjacket. If it is only numbers that matter, particularly if it is plus or minus 5 per cent and not plus or minus 10 per cent, we will get ridiculous boundaries, cutting through towns and across natural boundaries, taking no account of these important matters. My noble friends on the Front Bench may not like this-I am not saying that there should be 650 seats-but there should be a clear figure and one that is specified by Parliament. I raised this when the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was speaking. For England anyway-and England is the important country in this regard-I do not think that a figure has ever been specified by Parliament before. We should give some degree of flexibility, taking account of the present boundaries.
	That brings me on to another reason to have flexibility. A large number of Members of Parliament were recently elected, because there was a huge turnover in the House of Commons in the last election. They are just settling into their constituencies and getting to know their constituencies and to understand the boundaries. That is why the Boundary Commission should in my view start from existing boundaries. That may add a little bit to it, but it would give flexibility. If we specify so rigidly a figure, it will not be able to start from that. There is already going to be clear destabilisation of existing Members of Parliament. I have heard not just from Labour Members but from Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members that they are already worried about the effects that these proposals will have on the selection and reselection arrangements. It will be doubly difficult if the Boundary Commission is unable to get some degree of flexibility. I hope that the Minister will have some opportunity to deal with that and to say whether some flexibility might be considered.
	I endorse what my colleagues said earlier and want to add a couple of points, first on the workload of Members of Parliament. A number of Members have dealt with the matter of the change here very effectively. When I was elected first in South Ayrshire, there were no mobile phones and no e-mail, which have made a substantial difference. I raised the importance of direct access to the Member of Parliament when the noble Lord, Lord Maples, spoke on this subject, and said that MPs do not have to take a personal interest in individual cases that come to them. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that even when I had a majority of 21,000-which was bigger than his ever was-I communicated with and replied to everyone. When people sent petitions about schools closures, I also contacted them. As my noble friend Lady McDonagh, who is in front of me, said, that may be why I ended up with a majority of 21,000 and why her sister has a large majority. It is because we deal with them in that way.
	However, I remember the late Donald Dewar, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and when he was Chief Whip. When he was doing all those important jobs, he used to deal with every constituent person. I remember him on the train-when the rest of us may have been enjoying ourselves a little-dictating long, detailed letters in reply to constituents so that he could-

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords-

Noble Lords: Order!

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I am in the middle of a speech. Does the noble Lord want to ask a question?

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: The noble Lord has been addressing the House for quite some time. He has not come up with new arguments or new points. The Minister has already spoken and I believe that we should bring this debate to a conclusion.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord will know that the fact that the Minister has spoken does not mean that the debate finishes. Noble Lords are quite entitled to continue the debate after the Minister has spoken and other noble Lords have indicated their interest on this issue.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I was in the middle of a speech. I have sat through the whole of this debate. Noble Lords will confirm that I have never been out at any stage. I have listened to it. Then a Whip comes in and interrupts me right in the middle of the speech. If there are any traditions or conventions in this House, I must say that I find that kind of rudeness detestable. I was talking about my late friend Donald Dewar and I want to make a couple more points. They also relate to the fact-I am sure that the Minister will confirm this-that we have spoken about the work in Parliament and in the constituency. Those of us who represented Scottish constituencies also had to spend a huge time of travelling to and from our constituencies. It takes a substantial amount of time to travel backwards and forwards between the constituency and Westminster.
	I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, would be here because he usually makes some very positive interventions in such debates. He made one recently in one of our debates about the setting up of Select Committees. He, of course, was the architect of the Select Committee. When I came into the other place in 1979, there were relatively few Select Committees. There were only a handful: the Public Accounts Committee and one or two others. Norman St. John-Stevas, as he was then, set up a whole range of new Select Committees, one for each department of state. It was a very positive advancement as far as the House of Commons was concerned but with extra work for Members of Parliament, as my noble friend Lord Martin will confirm. He came in with me at the same time and saw those Select Committees being set up.
	I served on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for some time, which was very interesting, but we had to travel overseas with all of the work that that involved. I know that it was a great burden. Then my noble friend Lord Kinnock-I am looking at my good friend-when he was leader of the party, with great wisdom and sagacity, put me on the Front Bench along with my now noble friends Lord Anderson and Lord Robertson. We provided a great team, first under the noble Lord, Lord Healey-Mr Healey, as he was then-and under Sir Gerald Kaufman, as he is now. The responsibility and workload of an opposition spokesperson must not be underestimated. We did not have the resources that Ministers have, with huge departments behind us, but we had a huge amount of work to do. You had all that responsibility of looking after a constituency, sitting on Select Committees, being Front-Bench spokesmen and dealing with standing committees. It is a huge responsibility that has not been fully appreciated.
	I do not think that there is enough understanding down in the other place of the importance of this place. That is something which we have to do. We have to educate them about the role and the importance of the House of Lords. However it would be useful, particularly for those people who have not experienced the other place, to meet new Members and to find out exactly what the workload is. While I endorse everything that my colleagues have said in relation to the workload and on all the other arguments about the numbers, I have raised this new point. It is a new point, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, may say. I usually see him at the airport on the way to Bergerac but it is nice to see him here. Thereby hangs another story, which I will not go into too much; he and I look very different on those occasions. I have genuinely raised another point on the degree of flexibility that we need to give the Boundary Commission. Can the Minister tell us whether the Boundary Commission for England has been consulted about this? I am sure that, if given the opportunity and asked, it would welcome that additional degree of flexibility.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: Can the noble Lord say succinctly whether he is for or against this amendment?

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Succinctly, if my noble friend pushes this amendment I do not think that I am minded to support it. I would rather see some degree of flexibility but I am waiting to hear all the other arguments. As I have said, I have already sat through all three-and-a-half hours of the debate and am prepared to sit through the rest of it. I will make up my mind at the end as, no doubt, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, also will.

Lord Rooker: I am not keeping to the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, as I do not want it thought that I can be intimidated by the Front Bench opposite. What I have to say will sound a lot better in the dog hours of 2 am to 4 am so I shall save most of it for later on. First, I support very much what the Minister said. He cannot answer for a political party at the Dispatch Box. I fully accept that but there cannot be a party manager anywhere in the country that is not working out the consequences of this. On my visit to the Conservative Party conference, I could not avoid seeing the glass-walled room where, hour after hour, the training sessions were going on for the boundary changes. I assume that it was happening at the other conferences as well, but you cannot answer for that at the Dispatch Box and no one would expect the Minister to do that.
	I want to share something very brief. I went into the other place in 1974, when it had 635 members. Paradoxically, in 1983, when the boundary change took the other place up to 650, my constituency changed from 52,000 to 76,000. Not many had a 50 per cent increase in one go. It changed my working pattern enormously but it was absolutely manageable. There was no problem, once you got settled in and learnt which sides of the streets were odd and even and where the postcode boundaries were-that is the way I work; I got my hands on the detail-so it is manageable. To be honest, as I have already said, I take the view that there should be fewer than the 650. I would not put a figure on it. I would go much further.
	The point from my noble friend Lord Soley was valuable. I was, in a way, responsible for doing the very thing that he said but you actually undermine local government. With my constituency at 76,000, I was once in Gloucester-with its inner-city, dockland and urban renewal problems-talking to councillors as a spokesman for the Opposition. I asked them, "How many councillors have you got?". They said, "We've got 46". I said, "Well, the size of your patch is about the same size as my constituency". "Oh, well", they said, "we've got 12 county councillors". I said, "I've got 12 councillors"-and that was all there was for 76,000, because of the size of the wards in Birmingham being 18,000 to 20,000. I was not in a position of shoving on to my few councillors the council work that came my way, but in the end you have that ratchet effect of undermining local government because of that structure. That is the issue to be addressed. Frankly, there is an opportunity to address that.
	Your Lordships can have a look at the numbers-it is not scientific and it would be preposterous to say so-and at what was said in our Select Committee report on the role and functions of Members of Parliament and then their numbers. It is the very thing that we should do in this place; the role and function, then the form of getting in here. It is not to say that MPs should be constrained in what they do. They have to be freely elected to speak freely but if they could concentrate on being the cockpit of the nation-the inquest, if you like-and turn their attention to more scrutiny of central government in a very targeted, forensic way, we would have a better democracy for it. That would come as a consequence, but it would be much better if we could take that along with the flow, by a degree of consensus, so that it is not seen to be-this is the perception-for party advantage and party-driven. The outcome may be something that we could all say is a big success. Why spoil it all in the method of getting there if, at the end of the day, we will get something that will be good for all of us? I have stuck to my five minutes.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I will just deal with the central points. First, the suggestion has been made by some noble Lords that we should not be debating this at all because we are the Second Chamber. I utterly reject that contention. Our position has always been that we take a-I see that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is shaking his head at that suggestion. He is the one who suggested that it should be left to the elected Chamber. I disagree with that. He said that we did not care about it at Third Reading in the Commons. I shall just quote Mr Sadiq Khan, who said that,
	"this Bill is a bad means of delivering both objectives. It is too inflexible and too hasty, and it will lead to great and ongoing political instability. This House has failed to improve the Bill because it has not been allowed to do so. To our shame, that task now falls to unelected peers in the other place, whom we must now rely on to inject some democratic principles into what, to date, has been an inglorious episode in recent parliamentary history".-[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 870.]
	I agree with all that my right honourable friend said.
	The second contention is that if one looks at history, this House has a proud history of dealing with politically driven attempts to change the complexion of the House. Some Members will remember the attempt by a Labour Government in 1969 to introduce an Act of Parliament designed to jigger with the boundaries. It was this House that blocked that proposal, so the idea that we should not be giving this proper scrutiny is completely wrong.
	The third contention is that the numbers in the House of Commons should be reduced. It is an important issue to debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who we have all come to respect in this House for the way that he has dealt with this Bill, put his case this strongly. He said that introducing a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament would "not impair" the working of democracy. That is not remotely a basis on which it could be said that the number of Members of Parliament should be reduced.
	I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, that it is almost impossible, I would have thought, scientifically to work out what the approach of individual Members of Parliament will be to their constituents. It will change. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, that it will be for each individual Member of Parliament to determine how it is done. I completely agree with Mr Tony Wright who, before the previous Parliament came to an end, presided over the Public Administration Committee. He said that there should be an examination of what the right role and function of Members of Parliament should be.
	The debate this afternoon reveals that there are differing views about it, not just in relation to what you do in relation to your constituents, but about what is the right number to have as an effective national legislature that also selects the Executive. Surely before one embarks upon something that one seeks to justify by saying that reducing the number would not impair the working of democracy, it would be sensible for there to be some independent examination of this issue-for example, the Speaker's Conference in 1944-but there has been nothing at all. In those circumstances, when Members on this side and on the other side of the House ask for the reasons why we are reducing, the answer given by the Government is that it will not do damage.
	There have been two particularly signal speeches; one by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, and one by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. They sought to grapple with the issues. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, was funny and witty and was made slightly unfortunate by the fact that he wanted to tell us all off after five minutes, but we will forgive him for that. He has a consistent history of supporting reducing the number quite significantly, and I gathered from his speech that his view is that the Commons would be a better place for dealing with policy issues if it was smaller. I also rather understand that the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was putting the same argument. They were both putting the argument quite effectively that as far as the size as their constituencies was concerned, geographically in relation to the Mole Valley in Surrey and in relation to numbers as far as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was concerned, they could cope. That was their argument. They may be right. I do not know whether they are right, but they are two, if I may say so with respect to both of them, admirable mavericks who have had that view over a long period of time. It is not a view around which moss has gathered.
	That is why, instead of it suddenly bouncing out of a clear blue sky that we should reduce from 650 to what is in effect an arbitrary number, the right course is that there is a proper examination so that people outside this place will have some confidence. The consequence of doing it in the way that the Government have done it, the consequence of there not being an intellectual argument to support it, the consequence of there not being any independent body that has concluded that this is the right thing to do, is that you could not say after this debate that even the House of Lords supports this with any degree of unanimity. It is an unstable proposal as far as our House of Commons is concerned, and it is a very unwise thing to be doing.
	My amendment was a probing amendment. In parenthesis, if the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, were here, I would, with respect, answer her complaint that we did not vote last Monday. My experience in the Lords is that we vote in Committee from time to time but, generally, we try to avoid votes in Committee. That has been the practice in relation to the something like 60 groups of amendments that we have had so far in this Bill. I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that that was not adequately explained to her by us.
	This was a probing amendment. Three points came out of it. First, I am sorely unimpressed by there not being any sense of consensus about what should happen to the number. Secondly, the danger of it being done by fiat from the other place is very high. Thirdly, I think we need to come back with another amendment that seeks to ensure-

A noble Lord: Oh for God's sake!

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I hear a noble Lord say "Oh for God's sake!". The tradition in this House is that we have the debate in Committee and then we produce a further amendment on Report. If it is the intention of the House to change that procedure, I would be interested to hear whether we are dissatisfied with our current procedures. Fourthly, a process whereby an independent body determines the size of the House, as is the current arrangement, may be best. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Noble Lords: Object!
	Amendment 58A negatived.
	House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.39 pm.

Tunisia
	 — 
	Statement

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, with permission, I shall now repeat as a Statement the Urgent Question that was answered by the Minister for Europe in the other place this afternoon:
	"Mr Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to update the House on recent events in Tunisia and what is being done to assist British nationals. The House will be aware that, following a month of protests over government corruption and the lack of political and economic reform, a state of emergency was declared and President Ben Ali left Tunisia for Saudi Arabia. I hope the House will join me in expressing our sympathy to those whose friends and relatives have been killed or injured in these disturbances.
	The Speaker of the House of Deputies, Fouad Mebazaa, has been appointed interim President in line with the constitution. President Mebazaa has asked Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi to form a Government of national unity. Talks continue with opposition parties and civil society to agree a way forward. An announcement on the new Government is expected today.
	An estimated 5,000 British nationals were in Tunisia when the situation deteriorated, the majority being tourists on package holidays. We changed our travel advice to "all but essential travel" on 14 January, and since then more than 3,000 British nationals have left Tunisia. Many of these were able to leave on additional flights laid on by their tour operators, thanks to the swift response of these companies. We believe there are approximately 1,000 British nationals remaining in Tunisia. This number is largely made up of long-term residents, as well as dual nationals and some independent travellers. Many of those still in Tunisia do not wish to leave.
	Despite exceptionally challenging conditions, the embassy is working to help resolve the crisis and provide support to British nationals in Tunisia. We have sent a six-person rapid deployment team and two members of staff from the region to reinforce embassy staff and provide constant consular assistance. We have a 24-hour hotline which people can ring for help and advice. British nationals in Tunisia can call 00 216 71 108 713. Those in the UK should ring the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 020 7008 1500. We have staff at Tunis Airport to liaise with airlines and help British travellers with medical, passport and other consular issues.
	Our embassy staff remain in regular contact with our network of wardens across Tunisia to better understand the evolving picture around the country and keep those British nationals that we are aware of informed of updates as the situation evolves. We are keeping those British nationals registered on LOCATE updated on developments through regular e-mails. We have been working very closely with tour operators and ABTA, which have been doing a great job. We encourage concerned British nationals to follow developments closely, and monitor our travel advice and the news for updates. Any British nationals currently in Tunisia can register with the embassy's online registration system, LOCATE. We are receiving very few consular calls; those who are calling are mostly asking for updates on the security situation.
	We continue to advise against all non-essential travel to Tunisia. We advise anyone in the country who does not have a pressing need to be there to leave by commercial means. The airports are operating, and airlines are flying into and out of Tunisia. Those still in the country should respect advice or instructions given by the local security authorities and tour operators, and avoid rallies and demonstrations. There is no indication that British nationals are being targeted by looters or rioters. However, given the unpredictability of the situation, there is always the chance of being caught up in incidental violence. If British nationals are in any doubt about the safety of their location they should stay in their accommodation.
	Politically, we are working with partners, including in the European Union, to promote political reform. As soon as possible we will be seeking to engage the Tunisian authorities to help this. This week we have spoken with the Tunisian ambassador to London, and our ambassador met the Foreign Minister on Thursday. Mr Alistair Burt was interviewed on Saturday morning by the "Today" programme and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has issued two statements on the issue. We encourage all involved to do all they can to restore law and order. We call for full inclusion of all legal parties in the formation of an interim Government.
	The change in the past few days in Tunisia has been profound but it is not yet the political reform that many hope for. The authorities must not ignore the voice of the Tunisian people. We will be working with partners to try to ensure an orderly move towards free and fair elections, and an immediate expansion of political freedoms in Tunisia.
	There were extended EU discussions on Friday. We have been calling for a speedy and substantial offer of EU support to underpin the move to free and fair elections, which will be critical in re-establishing calm and security in the country. The EU high representative, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, has today issued a statement which states that the EU stands ready to provide immediate assistance to prepare and organise the electoral process and lasting support to a genuine democratic transition. We will continue to provide the help and advice that British nationals need, and we will continue to engage with and support Tunisia as it works for peace and security".
	That completes the Statement.

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made today in the other place. I ask at the outset how it was that the FCO rapid deployment team was sent only yesterday. It seems that a certain amount of time elapsed during which people probably needed its support. After decades of authoritarian rule in Tunisia I had hoped for a stronger Statement from the Government on what has occurred there. We have seen demonstrations that have focused on high food prices and very high unemployment levels. These have escalated into nationwide protests against terrible corruption and government repression in Tunisia, which have been dealt with with inordinate violence and unjustifiable lethal force against civilians.
	Has the Foreign Secretary spoken with the interim Prime Minister and is he in regular contact with the European Union high representative as the EU prepares to support efforts in Tunisia to bring democracy and good governance to that country? Has the Foreign Secretary also been following the Euro-Med discussions about the situation in Tunisia, if, indeed, these discussions are taking place? Does the Minister agree that the UK, as a member state of the European Union, must seize this moment to stand by the courageous human rights defenders in Tunisia and ask for accountable politicians in Tunisia and across the region to take a stand against what has been occurring in that country? There must be no tolerance by the EU of any efforts to undermine a nascent democracy in Tunisia. I speak about the possibility of that happening among states within the region.
	There has to be accountability for those who are corrupt and who committed crimes under Ben Ali. There have been warning signals which point to the dangers of failing to act decisively when we see freedoms being abused in this way. There has to be an impartial and credible investigation into the killings and abuses to ensure that the perpetrators are held to account in courts of law. The departure of President Ben Ali does not exonerate agents of the security forces who committed such heinous crimes against demonstrators. I had hoped that some of these points would be made more strongly in the Statement. It is important that we stand firmly for respect for freedom of expression and information that belong to us all. The people of Tunisia longed for opportunity, political participation and stability. Incidentally, this view has been endorsed by the African Union Peace and Security Council. Now is the time at last to establish a basis for democracy in Tunisia.

Lord Howell of Guildford: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that response. First, I shall deal with the rapid deployment team, which has, by all accounts, done an excellent job. The initiative of setting up the rapid deployment team was taken by the noble Baroness's own Government, perhaps by her and her immediate predecessor, and has worked extremely well. It is a very valuable initiative and I congratulate the previous Government on putting in place a team organisation of this kind which has helped in such dramatic situations as the tsunami a couple of years back, the Haiti horror and the effects of the volcanic ash.
	The noble Baroness asked why the rapid deployment team did not move faster. In fact, it moved extremely fast but there was one snag which was outside its and indeed our power and control, which was that of air transport, getting it organised and getting the team into the country fast. However, it is now there and is doing an extremely valuable job. It is a credit to this country as a whole, quite aside from who happens to be in government, that we are able to mount this sort of operation.
	The noble Baroness said that she had hoped for a stronger Statement. I understand that; we all feel very strongly indeed about our core principles as a nation and we should proclaim them at all times. However, the difficulty, particularly in these very early days, is understanding which way the trend of events is going so that we can be most assured that the number one step is achieved: namely, the restoration of order and calmness and the end of violence, killing and bloodshed so that a sensible pattern of government can evolve. Although parliamentary convention required my honourable friend to say that there was a prospect of a new Government, in between him making the Statement and me repeating it, such a Government have been set up, with opposition Members. If one dare say so, that is somewhat encouraging. As the noble Baroness rightly implied, this is the point when we urge that this new Government, who embrace opposition Members, put to the forefront the concern for human rights, realise that they have a duty to accountability and that there is much to be learnt from past events which have led to this very ugly and dangerous situation which may-who knows?-we hope calm down, but which may have all kinds of domino repercussions in a wider area, some of which could be very injurious to general global and regional stability and to the interests of this nation.
	That is my broad answer to the noble Baroness's questions. She asked about regular contact with European Union high officials. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is in close contact through his office at all times. We are particularly in touch at official level with the French Foreign Minister and with the office of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. They are key actors in the situation and strengthen our overall European Union approach as well as anything we can contribute bilaterally. I hope that those are regarded as satisfactory answers to the noble Baroness's points, but I am very happy to elaborate on them in more detail in what is still a very fast moving situation.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: My Lords, I was about to question my noble friend on exactly that last point and ask whether he would welcome the announcement this afternoon of the formation of the interim Government. Under the Speaker, a new Prime Minister and members of the so-called opposition parties, plus civil society, there is at least a chance that order is being restored rather more quickly than we had expected. I am not surprised that he said in the Statement that a lot of members of the British community said they did not wish to return, because Hammamet, the main tourist area, has been largely peaceful. I was there recently, and should declare an interest as a member of the board of a company with interests there. Understandably, people want to complete their holidays. This may be tempting him too far, but does my noble friend agree that out of this tragedy there is a lesson to be learnt throughout the rest of the continent of Africa, and indeed the Middle East, that Governments who engage in corruption and lining their own pockets have a limited life shelf, and that others should be aware of what has happened in Tunisia and perhaps learn the lesson from it?

Lord Howell of Guildford: My noble friend offers some very wise and comprehensive comments on the overall situation. This is a lesson. We live in a much more transparent and e-enabled age, with television programmes in their multiple dozens, such as Al-Jazeera and others, fantastic media influence, fantastic rapid communication through the internet, e-mails or the varieties of web operation that we are beginning to know so well, and of course the mobile telephone. All these influence the transmission of both truth and rumour into situations such as the one in Tunis, which can become very volatile very quickly. The lessons should not be lost on others who seek to rule by failing to be transparent and failing to transmit all the knowledge and accountability that they should to their citizens. My noble friend has absolutely hit the nail on the head on that matter. He was kind enough to recognise the problem that the new Government have been formed since my honourable friend spoke in the other place. Now that they have been formed, we are very anxious to see that they go forward in a really constructive and balanced way, and we will do everything, through our embassy, our contacts and our colleagues in the European Union, to encourage that process.

Viscount Waverley: My Lords, what if there is a repetition of a party such as Islamic Salvation Front winning the national elections, as happened in Algeria 1992? Will the Government promote an EU line to allow any obvious winner to let be? Is there any suggestion that Tunisia's neighbours, such as Libya, Algeria and Egypt, will intervene to keep a form of status quo?

Lord Howell of Guildford: The noble Lord will understand that those are highly hypothetical questions. The Algerian situation of 19 years ago is one from which we should draw lessons, and so should the countries of the area. The neighbouring countries are, as we are, watching closely to see how this pattern will develop. However, these are very early days. One wants this newly formed Government to command confidence, get violence off the streets and ensure that non-democratic forces, and those that are inclined to violence, stay in and are kept under control. Then we will see what the broader implications are. I personally hope that the broader implications to the wider world are simply of the kind mentioned by my noble friend a moment ago, whereby democracy, transparency and responsibility to citizens are always wise if you want to stay in power.

Lord Boateng: My Lords, in welcoming the Minister's Statement, and particularly his warm words, which are well deserved for the consular section of the Foreign Office, I must ask whether recent events in Tunisia do not underscore the importance of Her Majesty's Government having an Africa strategy in which we are better able to co-ordinate the efforts of the FCO, DfID, the MoD and the whole machinery of government behind progressive change in Africa. That is because two things emerge very clearly from the Tunisian experience and are mirrored elsewhere on the continent. One is that food security and food prices are becoming increasingly an issue and a threat to stability and security. Secondly, unemployed young people with qualifications, unless given the prospect of jobs through growth, are likely to be led into actions that also threaten security and stability. Democracy has at last found a place in Africa as part and parcel of the ordinary people's own agenda, to which they need to see a response. Does that not mean that this is a matter not just for the European Union and France, but for us to ensure that we have in place a whole-Africa strategy that strengthens and sharpens our response to this sort of situation?

Lord Howell of Guildford: The noble Lord knows more than most about Africa strategies and speaks wise words. Perhaps he would also recognise that Africa is a concept, as it were, and a geographical continent, but that it contains a vast range of different societies, cultures and trends in political and social evolution, all of which must be calibrated to ensure that one gets right one's relations with different countries and shows the necessary respect to different countries, rather than lumping them all together into one general formula by which they should be treated. I think the noble Lord accepts that point, and I hope he will feel that I am adding to, rather than subtracting from, his wisdom on this matter.
	Food prices and unemployment are the uneasy shadows of the age. There are tremendous volatilities in the availability of food. Some experts tell us that it is not the basic lack of supply of foodstuffs but problems of distribution, processing, handling and getting the right kind of food into the right kind of supply chains that create so many of the problems. Unemployment is similar. What does a world, and particularly a region, do, given that we are talking about the Maghreb and the Middle East, where almost the majority of people are young and are waiting for an opportunity to fulfil themselves and find useful employment? What do they do if no employment is available and the opportunity to contribute to their community is not there? What do they do if they have no country that they feel they should love and no confidence about getting a fair share of a country's prosperity? That is one of the angry themes that has come through in Tunis: the feeling that some people were doing extremely well-the fat cats-while the majority struggled and did not benefit from the relative prosperity. I say "relative" because the country is not as poor as some. It receives a great deal of aid from France. Did that help the men and women, the families and children, in their homes? Clearly not, and now we are seeing the results.

Lord Chidgey: My Lords, will the Minister tell us a little more about the assessment of the reaction among the countries in the region to the situation in Tunisia? My noble friend will be aware of reports that Colonel Gaddafi's people have been providing arms for the guerrillas on the streets of Tunisia who supported the outgoing President, and also that the security council of the Egyptian Government met hurriedly a day or so ago in response to the situation. There are great concerns about stability and turbulence in neighbouring countries that have similarly suspect forms of government. Perhaps my noble friend would take us a little further on the Government's assessment of that.

Lord Howell of Guildford: It is hard to add to the expertise of my noble friend. All the neighbouring countries are assessing the situation, as we are tonight in London. The implications are being examined very carefully. Broad themes lead to suggestions of domino theories. Articles by expert commentators have appeared in the newspapers saying that this could be the beginning of a very big transformation in the region. One hopes that it will be orderly and stable rather than violent and disruptive. That would be an important aspect of our foreign policy and national interest, and we would need to follow it closely. On the other hand, it may be possible to contain what is happening entirely in a Tunisian context, so that broader lessons could be learnt more slowly and in an orderly way.
	My noble friend is right that the Egyptians are looking closely at the matter. Algeria has its problems, along with the Maghreb and Morocco, which is prosperous and well ordered but still concerned. The dark al-Qaeda jihadist extremist element is not apparently present in the Tunis situation. It is reckoned that al-Qaeda is operating in the Maghreb to the south of the area in Tunis that we are looking at. One can never be sure, but that is the broad assessment at the moment.

Lord Hurd of Westwell: I congratulate my noble friend on the balance he struck in his comments on the Statement. I will make one point. We all hope that the new Government who are being formed, or their successor, will restore order quickly. However, that may not be so; this may drag on for some time. I remember in other cases how quickly the news disappeared from our newspapers, but how the strains on our own people handling the daily problems that my noble friend mentioned remained. Exhaustion sets in quickly. Is the Foreign Office looking further than the next few days to the weeks and even months ahead, which may include periods of considerable distress and disorder-although we hope that they will not-to make sure that we continue to be able to manage the problems of our own citizens in the way that we have up to now?

Lord Howell of Guildford: I am grateful to my noble friend for his advice, which is invaluable in this kind of situation. I can answer firmly that that is what we want to do. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office needs to think about the implications of this further piece in the jigsaw of the new international order, which is fluid and changing very fast. Further to the east of where we are looking at-the Maghreb-is the Middle East imbroglio. To the east of that there is the Gulf, and to the east of that is a conglomeration of GCC states that are now reorienting themselves in the direction of the rising Asian powers. This is an entirely new world. We have to watch very closely and prepare for big changes in our existing assumptions.

Lord Bannside: My Lords, I am sure that we are glad of the Statement that we heard from the Minister tonight. However, I will stress one matter. Why did this come as a terrible surprise to the people in this area? Were the Government not aware that the matter was underneath the surface? We welcome the European part of the question. That must be worked on, because we need strong resistance to what has taken place, and strong assistance to those who will help to put it right.

Lord Howell of Guildford: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that. Why does it appear suddenly to have caught certain people by surprise? The point when these things break through, into regrettable violence and protest in this case, is always a bit of a judgment. That there were forces at work that could lead to the situation is not such a surprise. I do not want to drag the rather overrated WikiLeaks into the situation, but leaks were flying around, which certain senior diplomats were observing some years ago, that the fundamental pattern of government in Tunis looked a bit unhealthy, and that the disease and infection of corruption and vast disparities between rich and poor were around and could lead to trouble. Senior diplomats saw that something was wrong some time ago, but it is always difficult to assess exactly when these things will explode.

Baroness Browning: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman of the All-Party Group on Tunisia. I was pleased to hear what my noble friend told the House tonight about the involvement of the EU and the opportunity to oversee democratic elections. Will he assure us that, as things settle down, the British Government will use their influence both unilaterally and within the EU to ensure that as soon as possible, when it is suitable to do so, there will be a concerted effort to take trade delegations to Tunisia? With a more highly educated population, Tunisia cannot exist on tourism and dates. There are opportunities in Tunisia for much more trade, but the initiative must come from this side. I hope my noble friend will take that on board and understand that one of the many frustrations among that population relate to appropriate levels of work and the appropriate amount of trade that the country needs, with which we could help a great deal.

Lord Howell of Guildford: This is a positive set of observations. Having visited Tunisia on more than one occasion, I wondered how the basis of its economy could be sustained by its very successful tourism and by what I am told are its 20 million date trees. How one can count them? I do not know. How can it be done? The answer is that it has been done, but clearly diversification and development are badly needed. I suspect that deep down inside the causes of this present disturbance is the fact that they have not been developed fast enough. We and the EU, bilaterally, certainly have a role to play, as do our French friends and neighbours.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Our key national interest appears to be the security of our own nationals, and to that extent the Foreign Office appears to have responded speedily and in an exemplary manner. I congratulate the Minister on what he said. Successive human development reports of the UNDP illustrate the lack of poor governance in the various Arab countries, and I wonder to what extent we were already alerted to the problem and the way in which it was building up, although the spirit in Tunisia appears to be far freer than in some of its neighbours in the Maghreb. Can the Minister say to what extent he believes lessons will be learnt and the extent to which we will urge neighbouring Governments-perhaps not us, but, better, the European Union as a whole-to listen to the people and their legitimate grievances about food security and employment, even if we do not particularly like the Governments who emerge and who might have a rather different view from us on world issues.

Lord Howell of Guildford: I hope, as we must all hope, that the lessons will be learnt. They are fascinating lessons, and some very profound observations have been made. The emergence of the food shortage issue and its impact on political stability in certain societies is in itself a vast issue that relates to other aspects of crops for biological use, biofuel, and so on. That has all kinds of impacts on world food prices, which at the moment are rising very fast.
	I am very grateful to the noble Lord, with his considerable experience of foreign affairs in the other place and here, for his kind words of congratulation. The Foreign Office to which I, as noble Lords will know, am relatively new, has demonstrated that in a situation of this kind, precise timing is always difficult to anticipate. However, the Foreign Office has acted with extreme speed, along with great help from ABTA and the commercial operators, who have done remarkably well in evacuating 3,000 tourists from the country at such enormous speed.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine: Does my noble friend agree that although the formation of a more inclusive Government is to be welcomed, it is very limited in its inclusion? The Islamist parties, for better or for worse, have been left out of it, as have the liberals. Does he agree that in order to have a pluralistic framework, which is what the people want now, all parties should be invited to come on board? Can he assure the House that the EU will monitor those elections?

Lord Howell of Guildford: It is early days to give a definite current on the last point, but that seems utterly sensible. As to the precise balance and formation of a new Government, the delicate, fragile gain for the moment is that a new Government are being formed and announced. Exactly what balance they should have and which parties should be included is a very difficult matter for those outside Tunisia to intervene on at the moment. All that we can do is offer our support and give them our good wishes and blessing as fast as we can, so that government rather than chaos emerges out of the present street violence and disorder.
	Sitting suspended.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
	 — 
	Committee (9th Day) (Continued)

Amendment 59
	 Moved by Lord Soley
	59: Clause 11, page 9, leave out line 18 and insert-
	"The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be decided by an independent commission established by the government, but shall not exceed 650 or be less than 500."

Lord Soley: My noble friend Lord Lipsey will speak to Amendment 60. These amendments go together. Amendment 59 is one of the core amendments about the nature of what the Government are doing. As regards this Bill, I have been troubled for a long time about the importance of constitutional issues. Everyone, including the Government, accepts that this is a constitutional Bill. I get the feeling that the Government have not recognised just how important this issue is, particularly to the opposition party, because the Opposition have not been consulted on the size of Parliament. I regard that as particularly important.
	I have been a member of the Labour Party for a long time. But it is not being a member of the Labour Party that drives me in politics; it is my strong belief in parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. I have held that view for many years. It goes back to when I was about six years old and watched adults dancing around an effigy of Adolf Hitler burning in the street. I wondered what sort of planet I had ended up on that people should be behaving like that. Over the coming years, it made me understand better why parliamentary democracy was so important and, much later, made me understand why the rule of law was so critical to it.
	This, for me, is not a party political issue in that sense, but it has become party-political precisely because the Government have chosen to determine the size of the House of Commons. This amendment points out that that is not right way to do these things. There ought to be an independent assessment of what the size of Parliament should be, and ideally-it is why the amendments are grouped together-that should be done through something like a Speaker's Conference or, better still, all-party agreement.
	That is profoundly important because what matters in constitutional Bills of this type is that if it is perceived that a party in government is altering the size of the House of Commons to suit its own party purposes, that immediately makes the Bill deeply party political. That is what I do not think the Government have taken on board. In summing up, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said that there was some suggestion of secrecy about the numbers. There has never been any secrecy about the numbers. Actually, I quoted from Andrew Tyrie's paper which made it clear that the Conservatives would win more seats if they could reduce the size of the House of Commons by 60 seats, and originally they thought they would win even more if they reduced the size by 120 seats. That does not mean that he did not also have a view that the House ought to be smaller, because he did, as did other people who supported him. It also did not mean that he was wrong to say that it would save public money; it probably would. But what you do not do is just change the size of the House of Commons without all-party agreement.
	To his credit, as I said in the last debate, Andrew Tyrie made that point. Indeed, he made two points, the first of which was that the Government of the day should seek all-party agreement. He referred to agreement with the Labour Party, but I would simply talk about all-party agreement. His other point concerned the payroll vote issue, which I shall come to in a moment. Why is this so important? I have said in one or two other interventions that one of the problems we face is that whenever we act as international observers in overseas elections, which many Members of this House have done from time to time-certainly I have done it-we do not just look at how well protected the ballot boxes are or at how well the polling stations are protected. We look not just at how the electoral register has been drawn up, but at how the number of seats in the parliament has been drawn up. If we found a situation where one of the major parties in that parliament had been excluded from that process, we would be deeply worried.
	I want to put it this way, particularly to Members opposite. They may recall that on the last amendment I referred briefly and in passing to when we decided, quite rightly in my view, to remove the judges from the House of Lords to a newly created Supreme Court. One of the many factors behind the change was that European countries coming out of communist regimes were saying, when they were told by the European Union that they had create judiciaries separate from their legislatures, "But Britain doesn't". We were trying to create a situation where we could separate the legislature from the judiciary, but what matters now is a question that I would like the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to address, if he is going to respond to the debate. If anyone from this House is observing an election, not least in one of the eastern European countries, and they are told that the Government of the day have decided on the size of the Parliament without the permission or agreement of one of the major political parties, will they really say "Yes, that is all right. It is not a problem"? I ask this of all the Members sitting on the Benches opposite because it is very important.

Lord Strathclyde: I cannot resist. Did the noble Lord think that it was outrageous that the Labour Government decided in 1997 to remove the hereditary Peers from the House of Lords without any consultation and agreement? Of course he did not.

Lord Soley: I answered that question before, but in a different way. I said, and I say again, that what matters is that, if you change the constitution in a way that reduces the chances of a political party winning an election, you cannot reverse what the Government have done. Removing hereditary Peers from here did not change the opportunity for a party to win an election. It is an important difference. That is why I make the case that one has to look at constitutional Bills differently. Of course, constitutional Bills about removing hereditary Peers or judges are very important, but when you change the composition of a House, which alters the ability of a major party to win an election, that party can no longer assume that it is in a position to reverse what the previous Government have done. That makes all the difference.

Lord Davies of Stamford: The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has thrown in our face the deal done in 1997 or 1998 over the future of hereditary Peers. I hope that my noble friend will agree that that, surely, was a fine example of negotiation-a very delicate and complicated but very successful negotiation. I believe, indeed, that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, played a not-undistinguished part in that very successful and historic compromise. What we have this evening is a complete absence of any desire to even talk, let alone have a negotiation or a compromise. Surely that is the fundamental difference between the two situations.

Lord Soley: My noble friend is quite right and he has reminded me of something. I remember being in the Corridor outside when the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, had had talks with the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, or with his office, and William Hague, the then leader of the Conservative Party, had got to hear about the deal that my noble friend refers to. I happened to bump into William Hague as he came back down the Corridor having seen the noble Lord. His face was as black as thunder. I only heard a bit of what he was saying, but it certainly was not complimentary about the deal that had been done. I diverge, but the point is right. There was a negotiation.

Lord Snape: Will my noble friend acknowledge the courage of the Leader of the House at that time? He fell on his sword as a result of those consultations and negotiations, which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, now denies ever took place at all.

Lord Soley: I must admit that I was always impressed that the noble Lord survived the experience, so I give him full marks for political survival. Let me get back to the central point, because it is critically important. When we observe elections in other countries-this was particularly true of the communist countries in eastern Europe, where a number of the communist parties had reformed themselves but still wanted to hold on to control-we see that, if you allow a Government to decide the size of a Parliament, you prevent another Government from having a chance to come in and alter it. You see it in Russia today; it is precisely what President Putin has been doing. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and David Cameron are not President Putin and the British Parliament is not the Duma or the Russian Parliament in general, but this is one of those principles that matter. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, said that principles do not matter in these things. I have to say that, on things like this, they do. They matter a lot. The feeling, rightly or wrongly, is that if one party loses out you undermine the credibility of your electoral system in a major way.
	The other problem that the Government have got themselves into is that, presumably, the Liberal Democrats signed up to this 60-seat reduction on the basis of the discussions that had been going on in the Conservative Party over the previous seven or eight years, which I referred to in my earlier speech. However, there is absolutely no need to have a set number of seats. One of my noble friends made the point that you can instruct the Boundary Commission to create a number of seats within a certain range. That is much better, because it allows the commission to take into account everything from geographical to socioeconomic factors. You do not need to decide the number of seats in a precise format.
	The reason why I put the range of 500 to 650 in my amendment is that I recognise that the Government have said over many years that they want to reduce the size of Parliament. I also recognise the importance of the deal politically between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. For them it is crucial and it is one of the reasons why we are having this big fight right now. I say again to the noble Lord, though, that I would like to compromise to some extent. Personally, I would prefer these things to be decided by all-party agreement, and I toyed with putting that in. I do not think, however, that the Government could live with that in the present climate. What they could maybe live with and recognise is that it is vital that Governments do not decide the size of Parliament.
	With the amendment, I have tried to give flexibility to the Government, not only in setting up the independent body but also in deciding its timescale. I do not pretend that it would be possible for that body to come up overnight with a definition of what MPs should and should not do, but there are different ways in which this can be addressed, one of which is to say, "If we're going to have a smaller number of MPs, what parameters should there be?". You could do that as a starter before addressing some of the other issues.
	What are the other issues? One of the most crucial, which has been totally ignored in the Bill, is that if you reduce the size of the House of Commons but do not at the same time reduce the payroll vote-those people who depend on the Government for their jobs-you immediately increase the power of the Government and decrease the power of Back-Benchers. There are fewer Back-Benchers to hold the Government to account and more Members in the pay of the Government of the day. That is not desirable. Someone else referred earlier to the professor at Essex University whose name escapes me for the moment-

Noble Lords: Anthony King.

Lord Soley: Professor King made the point that, if you reduce the number of MPs from which Ministers are drawn, you also reduce the "gene pool" for Ministers, as he described it. He said that that was quite important. I do not want to get into a detailed argument about why I am sympathetic to the idea of reducing the size of Parliament; I just want to make a couple of points in relation to it.

Baroness Wall of New Barnet: Would my noble friend describe for us what he means by an "independent commission"? I cannot understand why the Government would resent that and be opposed to it. My noble friend is suggesting that they would establish it and it would be independent. Can he give us some reason why he thinks that they may not want it?

Lord Soley: I am afraid that the only answer-this is the core of the problem that is making us do things such as debate this late at night when we could be doing other things with our lives-is, quite simply, that there is a political agreement between two parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, to do this regardless of the consequences or of the Opposition. That is what they are doing.
	I accept that the wording of my amendment is not perfect and that the Government would have to take it away and work on it, but there is no doubt in my mind that they could appoint an independent commission to look at this and come forward with some guidance on the basic issue of the numbers.

Lord Clinton-Davis: What is highly relevant is that this commission would be able to examine the evidence behind what my noble friend is proposing. Is that not very important?

Lord Soley: It is very important and it would also allow the commission to look at what is, for me, a critical point: the principle of a Government deciding the size of Parliament without the agreement of the parties within it. That is what is so dangerous and undesirable about this proposal.
	I want to extend my comments a little on the implications of the payroll vote. As I said earlier when I referred to pulling a thread on a jumper, the trouble is that when you pull at the thread of the number of parliamentarians and change it, you change other things as well. If you reduce the number, you inevitably change the power of the House to challenge the Executive. You also inevitably, as Professor King points out, reduce the pool of people from which Ministers can be drawn. However, it is possible to provide answers to those problems, although this is why I say that reducing the number is not a nice, simple option. It is perfectly possible to say that we will reduce the payroll vote in the House of Commons. You could, if there were agreement, then increase the number of Peers in the House of Lords or you could take a really radical step and increase the number of Ministers who are drawn from outside Parliament but who have to be called before Parliament. You could pursue all sorts of very radical proposals if that was what you wanted to do. The Liberal Democrats have occasionally said that they want to do things such as that. They have said that they want Ministers from outside this place who can be called in and cross-examined on the way in which they run their departments. All those things are possible, but what is not possible-

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords-

Lord Soley: I shall give way in just a second. What is not possible is to reduce the size of Parliament and not reduce the payroll vote without losing a lot of power for that Parliament.

Lord Strathclyde: What the noble Lord is saying is very interesting, but he is now speaking to Amendment 91A. Perhaps he would like to talk about this subject when we reach that amendment, rather than while we are debating this one.

Lord Soley: I am pleased that the noble Lord is on the ball. That is probably why he ran rings round William Hague. He is quite right, but I cannot not mention it in the context of an independent commission looking at the implications of a reduction in the size of Parliament. The other point that I want to make-

Lord Snape: Before my noble friend leaves that point-it is not for me to make his speech, as he is doing a more than adequate job-why does he not reply to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, by pointing out that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who is in his place this evening, has made it quite clear why he feels that the size of the House of Commons should be reduced? It is for pure political advantage. That is what he said in his article in the Times and that is what this debate is all about.

Lord Soley: My noble friend is quite right, but I am seeking to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I am wooing him, if you like. He does not look as though he is being wooed, but we will keep working at it and I might even get the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on my side. I indicated earlier that, when the noble Lord made his suggestion, he knew that it should happen with all-party agreement. I think that I am also right in saying that it would have implications for the size of government.
	I want to touch on another very important point. If this proposal goes through in its current form, the Government will be not just opening the door but laying out a welcome mat to any future Government of any complexion to say, "We've decided that this is the right size for Parliament and we are going to legislate to make it that size". That is what is so dangerous about this measure. If it goes through in its present form without an independent assessment of some kind, all-party agreement or a Speaker's Conference, the noble Lord will have no grounds for complaint if a future Government-

Lord Morgan: My Lords-

Lord Soley: I shall give way in just one second. The noble Lord will have no grounds for complaint if a future Government, be it a Labour Government or any other kind of Government, come forward with a proposal that, they will have worked out, will benefit them politically.

Lord Morgan: Does my noble friend not agree that it is very puzzling that this completely arbitrary figure has been given for Members of the legislature but that no figure has been given for the size of the Executive, even though many civil servants have made such proposals? Perhaps, in the course of his fascinating remarks, he will be able to draw out from the Leader of the House an explanation as to why one aspect has been stressed and not the other.

Lord Soley: My noble friend is quite right. I am waiting for that point to be answered, but, then again, there are a number of points that are not answered.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Perhaps I may marginally disagree with what my noble friend has just said. He said that a Labour Government would have to have in mind the way in which we have been treated. The reality is that a Labour Government would not do it, because we think that it is wrong and unprincipled. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, should understand that, and that is what is making us very angry.

Lord Soley: My noble friend is right, although I thought that I said "any future Government", not particularly a Labour Government. Any future Government could come in and simply say, "We are going to change the size". That goes back to the previous amendment, on which I do not want to dwell but where I quoted from Andrew Tyrie's booklet produced for the Conservative Party and referred to things that were said by other members of the Conservative Party in the intervening period; that is, that the figure of 120 over 10 years was too many, too fast, but that 60 over five years was manageable. My noble friend intervened with a question, but the real question is: should this Government win the next election, will they then go for the other 10 per cent? It is in the booklet; it is not a secret. There was considerable discussion of that figure. The Deputy Prime Minister said that he wanted the House to be reduced by 150. It is legitimate to ask whether the Government think that it is wise even from their point of view to have a system where the Government of the day get elected, look at the size of the House of Commons and say, "Well, we could have done better if we had this number" and then legislated accordingly. If in five years they are here, fighting such a proposal late into the night, they will not be feeling as they are feeling now and going around saying, "Oh, this is a filibuster. We don't like it". They will say, "This is an abuse of the constitution". Every one of them will be doing it, the Liberals more than anyone else. This is where the Liberals say one thing in one place and another in another place.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: Nonsense!

Lord Soley: I thought that the noble Lord was agreeing with me, but I might be wrong. Let us make no bones about it: if we are going to lay out the welcome mat to any future Government, not just a Labour Government, to be able to legislate on the size of Parliament, we are breaking one of the principles that we all observe when we check international elections. We are going against what is said in the European Union, the United Nations and the Commonwealth about checking elections. We all look at that as international observers for those bodies, yet here, all of a sudden, we are saying, "No, it's all right for the Government to legislate for the size of Parliament. It doesn't matter at all". Of course it matters.
	This Government might think that cutting the number MPs will be popular. Up to a point, they are right, but the problem is that they are playing the role of the overly powerful Government. It is not just the Public Bodies Bill and powers which they have taken which are over the top-Henry VIII powers are used in so much legislation now. I would be the first to concede that Henry VIII powers were taken to some extent under the Labour Government, but it is happening much more now-the Public Bodies Bill is virtually a Henry VIII Bill. But it is not just that; it is also putting enough new Members in this House so that the two political parties which form the Government, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, have a near-majority over the other political party. In other words, we are in danger of breaching that constitutional principle which we have all followed for years: that no political party should have a majority over the others here. I understand fully that the Government do not have a majority over the Cross Benches and the Labour Party jointly, but they certainly come very close to having a majority over the Labour Party. That differs greatly from what happened previously.

Lord Campbell-Savours: They have it.

Lord Soley: My figures may be slightly dated, but, either way, it is profoundly dangerous. I will end on this note-

Lord Grocott: Before my noble friend concludes, am I the only one-I am sure I am not-who can see the irony that since we started debating Part 2 of this Bill last Monday, which is basically about reducing the number of Members of Parliament by 50, during just that week 14 new Members have been introduced into Parliament-into this House? Can he explain the rationale of that situation?

Lord Soley: It is what I call over-powerful government again. Again I point out what Andrew Tyrie said. I am not attacking Andrew Tyrie. There are things I think he got wrong in that document, particularly about the figures of representation in other countries. However, it is a well written document and well argued. One of the other things that might make my noble friend sleep less soundly at night-assuming he gets to sleep any night in the near future-is that Andrew Tyrie actually said that the MPs who are displaced by this reduction in size should be given peerages, so we will have even more coming in here. It would be quite nice if the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, answers this and says that will not automatically happen, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might.

Baroness Wall of New Barnet: I have sat, like many other people, for many hours and have only just decided to contribute. There are several reasons that have been given by noble Lords on this side of the House why this is absolutely unacceptable. For me the most moving and convincing argument was that of my noble friend Lord Boateng, who talked about the role we play when we are asked to go out to Governments who are being formed as democracies. The Governments we belong to have always prided ourselves on being absolutely the epitome of governance and everything else. How do we ever accept the opportunity to go and guide and help those people when we have this situation ourselves now?

Lord Soley: My noble friend is making a point I made with very great emphasis right at the beginning of my comments. It is important to understand that we will be doing something radically different from everything we tell other countries to do. We look at elections overseas with the various bodies we work through-the United Nations, the European Union, the Commonwealth and so on-but we will be doing something we are telling other countries not to do. There are no ifs and buts about that.

Lord Garel-Jones: Like me, the noble Lord spent a bit of time in the other place. Like me, no doubt he can recognise a filibuster when he sees one. Can I please invite him to consider the danger under which he is placing this House in standing up against the expressed will of the other place by a substantial majority, and in masquerading and taking advantage of the customs of this House whereby we do not enjoy the facilities that are enjoyed in the other place precisely to bring to a conclusion boring filibusters of this kind?

Lord Soley: I am sorry to hear the noble Lord say that. He is so wrong and so misled on it. I have not in any way filibustered at all. The Committee has sat for nine days. I have made 13 speeches, none of them more than 15 minutes. I have made 19 interventions in nine days. Is that a filibuster? I am asking the noble Lord. Of course it is not. If he thinks that, he has a very strange definition of a filibuster.

Lord Garel-Jones: The noble Lord must be very aware from his experience in the other place many moons ago that there it would have been proposed that the question be now put.

Lord Soley: On a constitutional matter of this importance in this Chamber? What makes the difference is that this Chamber safeguards the constitution against abuse in the other Chamber at times. If the noble Lord does not understand that, he does not know why he has been here. Maybe he ought to think that perhaps he should not have come here if he takes the view that we ought to just roll over and have our bellies tickled every time the House of Commons says so. It is not like that at all and I think it is sad that someone of his experience should actually say that. This is a matter of considerable importance. It really is. If he is complaining that it has become party political, he needs to take on board that it has been made party political by a Government who have decided to do what other Governments are not allowed to do under all the systems we observe when checking elections-to change the size of a Parliament to suit their own political ends. That is what makes this different, and that is what makes it party political.
	I shall end with a quote from Vince Cable, who put it very well.

Lord Howarth of Newport: Before my noble friend concludes his valuable and very interesting remarks, would he care to remind the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, that until very recent years it was unthinkable that constitutional legislation would have been timetabled and programmed in the House of Commons. This really is an abuse. Since it has happened, it is only in this House that it is possible to give adequate scrutiny to this legislation. Does my noble friend recall that, in the House of Commons proceedings on this Bill, Clauses 3 to 6 on very important matters-the conduct of the referendum, combining polls and the rules about media coverage-along with Clause 11 that we are now debating, on the number and distribution of seats, were entirely undiscussed in the other place, in Committee and on Report? My noble friend is absolutely right to treat these important matters at some length and searchingly as he is.

Lord Soley: That is right. It is not just Labour Members in the other place but Conservative Members too who wrote to us asking us to cover these matters in our debates in the House of Lords, because they were not covered in the House of Commons as they should be.
	I end with a quote from Vince Cable, who, in an eavesdropped conversation-and in my view the journalists have something to answer for, but it is out so it must be said-stated that there was a real danger of the Government becoming Maoist in their tendencies. That is right. There is a foolish rush of power-perhaps of power to the head-which is driving them forward.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for giving way. I perfectly understand the legitimacy of arguments about the proper way in which one should reduce or not reduce the number of MPs. Where I do not follow him-and what seems an illegitimate argument-is for him to say, as he has said a number of times, that this is being done as a gerrymander, in effect. I put it to him that there is no evidence for that. What is the purpose of the Boundary Commission if it is not to ensure that any change in constituencies is fairly effected?

Lord Soley: Nobody has moved the word "gerrymandering", myself included. But let us be very clear what was being said, and not just in Andrew Tyrie's document. He says that the current numbers are unfair as they overrepresent the Labour Party and that the Conservative Party is underrepresented. He does not use those last words, but it is there throughout. In a number of the speeches, comments and articles written in newspapers, which I have going back over that period, it is repeated on numerous occasions by Conservatives that the Labour Party has too many seats. What he is basing that on-although I do not want to go over my last speech-is the number of the electors. But of course it rules out the underregistration problem and the social and economic factors that we referred to, so it is not appropriate. What matters is that with those figures, he has worked out, quite rightly-although I know there are arguments about this-that the Conservatives would win more of those seats. The argument gets a big convoluted if you put in the alternative vote, when it becomes more difficult to predict. But there is not much doubt that in the mind of the Conservative Party since 2004 there has been the view that the Labour Party has too many seats in Parliament and that the Tory Party should have more.

Lord Tyler: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Uncharacteristically, he seems not to have been attending to all these debates. If he had been listening, he would have heard the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, making it quite clear from the democratic audit analysis of the potential effects of the proposals in the Bill that there is no substantial increase in advantage for the Conservative Party. Indeed, I have to say that there is some disadvantage to my own party. In all fairness, I should have thought he would recognise that. It is the most legitimate, careful analysis of the potential impact of this Bill.

Lord Soley: I said a number of times, as I did in my last speech, that I am not sure whether the Tory Party would gain as much as it thinks, but it clearly thinks that it is going to gain. They are saying it over and over again. Does he deny there is evidence of that? It is also in the speeches. David Cameron said in 2009, "We are unfairly treated", so what is he saying? Do your Lordships think that he really has not asked his party workers to work it out? Of course he has.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Surely, even if were not to turn out that way, the very process raises the question. It will be a tainted process and people will suspect it as such.

Lord Soley: The point I made earlier is that if a major party is left out of the arrangements for deciding the size of the legislature, there will be trouble. I give way to my noble friend, who has great experience of this sort of thing.

Lord Wills: I am grateful to my noble friend. I wanted to suggest that he might direct the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who asked for evidence of the partisan nature of this legislation, to the website of Mr Mark Field-a prominent Member of the other place on the Conservative Benches-where he made it explicitly clear. I think that this is still up there; it was a few days ago. It says quite clearly that the party managers in the other place were going around seeking support for this legislation precisely because it would be to their partisan advantage.

Lord Soley: There is no doubt that that is how most people in the Conservative Party view it. I shall simply sit down on this point; the Government have made a fatal flaw. They are trying to decide the size of a Parliament without the agreement of the major parties. No other modern democracy would do that. All the bodies that we are part of, which oversee elections in countries emerging from dictatorships, look for that problem, identify it and point it out. The Government have also not looked at the other factor which I have referred to: the size of the payroll vote. They had something in here which said that they would reduce the size of the payroll vote. I know that we will come to that later. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will vote for it. He has obviously noticed it and clearly recognised its importance. It may be that I can tempt him into the Lobby on that one; who knows?
	This is so important, not some stupid idea of: "Well, just filibuster for the hell of it". I do not want to go back to what we did in the other place, staying overnight. I have far better things to do, frankly, with the remaining years of my life than to stay up night after night. But if a Government change the size of a Parliament without all-party agreement, they are driving a coach and horses through all the agreements that exists between parties in this place. They therefore cannot and must not assume that we will not fight it, because they would fight it if we did to them. If we did come back-and, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours says, I hope that we will not-with a figure in the House of Commons that suited us, do not tell me that they would not all be lined up on the other side doing everything that they could to prevent it. I beg to move this amendment.

Baroness Hayman: I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 59 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 60 to 63ZA for reasons of pre-emption.

Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60, which is a companion amendment to that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Before I go into the substance of the argument, perhaps I could make an offer-I must say that this is without any permission from my Front Bench-to the party opposite. We will happily stop accusing you of gerrymandering if you stop accusing us of filibustering. I heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soley. It was all material and to the point. If I was filibustering, I would have been extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, who unfortunately is not still in his place-I expect he thinks that he has made his point-for prolonging the debate. Yet I was not grateful for it because it seemed to do what we all want to avoid doing: to turn this into a party political argy-bargy instead of being, as it should be, a proper scrutiny of the Bill before this House of Parliament.
	In the interests of proceeding reasonably rapidly, I shall not go over again the arguments that my noble friend Lord Soley put so well for an independent look at this. My remarks are devoted more to the case for that being done by a Speaker's Conference. A range of views have been expressed on the substantive issues of whether we should stick with 650-my conservative noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has strongly argued that case; or whether we should reduce the number-the reductionists include the noble Lord, Lord Maples, and my noble friend Lord Rooker; or should, like me, sit on the fence but say that there are arguments against a reduction. I am bound to say that I did not find the Minister's response to the earlier debate terribly convincing on why the number should be 650. He did not say the figure was plucked out of the air because he is too shrewd an operator to do so, but it did not sound very different from being plucked out of the air to me. I am therefore taking as made the case for independent inquiry, and I will detain the House only to make the case that that should be by a Speaker's Conference and not, for example, by a royal commission, an independent inquiry headed by a judge or whatever.
	The main reason that I think it should be by a Speaker's Conference is that this is essentially a matter for parliamentarians. I say "parliamentarians" because I should want this House to be represented on any such Speaker's Conference. This is not because it is Members of another place who are going to be most adversely affected by what is being proposed. That is an issue-they have trade union rights, if you like-but that is not a good reason why they should be involved. The first reason that they should be involved is that they are the most knowledgeable about the issues involved. They may not all agree, but they have the experience of representing their constituents and existing in the House of Commons to weigh the arguments. There are arguments for a reduction; there is no doubt about it. It is difficult, for example, to get to speak in a debate in the Commons now. It is important that they should be weighing those arguments with the issue of which they have more knowledge than anybody else, which is whether the workload can be coped with by the average MP with the current level of staffing or even an increased level of staffing. They would bring that wisdom to bear, and we need it.
	The second reason for thinking that a Speaker's Conference is right is that however wise the verdict, if it does not attract political consensus, it will not be right and it will not necessarily stick. It is important that we achieve such a consensus, and it is important that all parties are agreed on it. A Speaker's Conference could achieve this. The coalition should be very sympathetic to this line of argument because the figure we have came about not because either one of the two parties involved was committed to it but because they sat down together and this was the figure they came up with. Widening the consensus to embrace all parties would seem to be an argument that should appeal to the coalition. It seems to me that those are the two fundamental cases for a Speaker's Conference.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I wonder whether my noble friend heard me arguing earlier for some flexibility for the Boundary Commission. Would it not also be possible for the Speaker's Conference to recommend a range so that it should be between figure x and figure y to give a little bit of flexibility to the Boundary Commission? Is that not another advantage of his proposal?

Lord Lipsey: That would be a possible outcome of a Speaker's Conference. It might also decide that the way to deal with the particular problem that he is advancing is by increasing the tolerance allowed in the size of constituencies, and that is a matter to which this House will return.
	In order to have a look at whether a Speaker's Conference is the right way forward, I devoted a happy Sunday to examining the records of past Speaker's Conferences. Funnily enough, that is not as easy a task as you might think, partly because there is no agreement on how many Speaker's Conferences there are. I started off with British Political Facts, which is the bible on all these matters, and it said six, but I then found a speech made by Jack Straw in another place-Official Report, Commons, 12/3/98; col. 781-in which he listed two Speaker's Conferences not listed by British Political Facts in 1908-10 and 1930. There is also the ambiguous case of the 1919 Speaker's Conference on devolution, which was chaired by Mr Speaker Lowther, and nobody seems to be able decide whether it was a Speaker's Conference. Let me confine myself to the six Speaker's Conferences that everybody agrees on and the progress that they made.
	There was the Speaker's Conference on electoral reform of 1917, which is my favourite. It not only advocated extending votes to women but-prize of prizes for the Lib Dems-it recommended STV. This, alas, was subsequently voted down by seven votes in the House of Commons. There was a Speaker's Conference on electoral reform in 1943-44, which dealt, for example, with Welsh representation. The 1944 Speaker's Conference was notable, incidentally, for including three Peers of the realm. It set out lasting principles for redistribution and directions to the Boundary Commission, which endured well. Sixty of 71 quite controversial recommendations by the 1965-68 conference on electoral law and procedure, under Mr Speaker Hylton-Foster, were accepted.
	The 1973-74 Speaker's Conference was under Mr Speaker Selwyn Lloyd. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is not present because I believe he sat on that as an MP, as did the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. That brought about an increase in election expenses, which otherwise would not have come about, for the February 1974 election. There was the 1977-78 Speaker's Conference, under Mr Speaker Thomas, on Northern Ireland representation. I see my noble friend Lord Radice is with us evening but the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, who also sat on that conference, is not present. That managed to solve the question of increased representation for Northern Ireland, although not everyone got everything they hoped for out of that. Then there was Gordon Brown's Speaker's Conference on electoral turnout and women and ethnic minorities in Parliament. It is not a flawless record but it is a considerable one, covering some of the most difficult problems that have faced this country's constitution.

Lord Davies of Stamford: Does the conference on the future of home rule, which took place in the summer of 1914 at Buckingham Palace, and was certainly presided over by the Speaker, not count as a Speaker's Conference?

Lord Lipsey: I do not know whether it should but it does not count in Mr Straw's list or in British Political Facts. If my noble friend wishes to inform the House further about that, I am sure it would be immensely valuable to our proceedings this evening.

Lord Morgan: I think the difference is between a conference convened by the party leaders, which they ask the Speaker to chair, and a conference that the Speaker is a dynamic element in arranging.

Lord Lipsey: I defer absolutely to my noble friend. Indeed, I was quailing in my seat at the thought of the intervention he might make, which might have sent me back to the classroom on this matter.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: On the Speaker's Conferences, I genuinely am ignorant about this one question. To what extent was there a clear remit to each of these Speaker's Conferences? From this debate, it is rather important that there should be flexibility and that a number of principles should be put to the Speaker's Conference to decide. Has it been the practice to give a very broad remit or to set out in extenso the various principles on which the Speaker's Conference should decide? Since my noble friend has devoted all of one Sunday to the study of this subject, I am sure he can enlighten us.

Lord Lipsey: Noble Lords will find that a range of experiences are set out in a Speaker's Conference Standard Note, House of Commons document, SN/PC/04426, which has in it most of the knowledge that I have tried to impart. In some ways we should learn from the shortcomings of past Speaker's Conferences in setting up this new one. They have tended to be rather big, often having 27 members. Not all of them have included Members of this House. For very good reasons I am sure that this time we would want to include Members of this House this time. In particular-this deals with the point that the Government might make against them-this one will need a speedy timetable as it is no part of the purpose of this side of the House to delay a decision or to make it impossible to introduce these changes for the next general election, if that is the desire of Parliament. Indeed, it would speed the passage of this bit of the legislation through this House if there was such a speedy conference. I really do not think this issue is so complicated that two or three months of hard work would not get us a good verdict which would enable the whole process to go forward on a sound basis of consensus, and therefore to endure.
	The Government have rushed us into a bad place and now they are complaining that we are rushing willingly into that place. The figure they have come up with may be right, but if it is right it is by sheer fluke, not by plan or consideration. This House, of the parliamentary Houses, stands for a reasoned approach to public policy, and in particular to public policy on our constitution. I therefore commend this amendment to the House.

Lord Morgan: My Lords, I support the amendment admirably moved by my noble friend. This is my first intervention in discussing this measure. I do so partly because late at night one has an opportunity to make a speech without being shouted down by mass of numbers and because the constitutional issues raised are so enormously important. The proposal for a Speaker's Conference is very serious and admirable as it gives an opportunity for objective measured reflection, which is manifestly something we are not having through the procedures chosen by the Government to get this measure through. There has been much debate on this and I have heard many noble friends on these Benches correctly say that Parliament has not had a proper opportunity to deliberate on the principles of this Bill. I say, never mind Parliament, the electors have not had a proper opportunity to do so. That is one of the extraordinary anomalies of this case, which was not put together in a manifesto. The Liberal Democrats gave a quite different number for the membership of this House. The Conservatives prudently did not give any number at all. It was not in the manifesto. It was not actually even in the substitute for the manifesto, which in itself was a constitutional anomaly, the coalition agreement, which was not put before the electors but was put before the people in that rather small room who put the present Government together. Some issues are not even in the coalition agreement, which I understand did not produce the figure of 600. This has simply emerged out of the ether and is therefore not to be found in any document, written or unwritten, other than the Bill we are discussing.
	A Speaker's Conference would also provide objective reflection on this portmanteau Bill of policies yoked together haphazardly, as the coalition parties were yoked together. As we have heard so frequently, it is at variance with constitutional tradition whereby major changes have been deliberated over at very great length and with great care. The Bill is being rushed through not because of the constitutional needs of good government in this country but because of the nature of the relationships between the Liberal Democrat leaders and the Conservative Party leaders which affect the date of the referendum for their own, no doubt, proper purposes. This is simply a matter of private deals, not of constitutional necessity.
	One of the things that a Speaker's Conference would most certainly do is what Speaker's Conferences have previously done, and that includes the very important principle of localism and local identity, which is being swamped in this Bill. Incidentally, if I might add to my noble friend's admirable historical disquisition on this-I was sorry to interrupt him-the Speaker's Conference of 1919, which he passed over rather rapidly, dealt very specifically with localism and regionalism and was a conference, incidentally, where the issue of Welsh home rule came up quite strongly. One of the ironies is that the proposals for Wales are likely to make Welsh home rule rather more likely-and they are the work of the party of the union-because of the way in which Wales is being treated.
	Speaker's Conferences have looked at a variety of criteria for assessing whether constituencies should exist, where they should be drawn, their geographical, economic and cultural aspects, and so on. They have used historical identity and the relationship with local government. None of these subtleties are being looked at in detail in the Bill. On the contrary, we have simply a crude mathematical formula. That is not the way that change has been done in this country.
	We have heard in previous debates about the Chartists, who called for equal electoral districts. However, the Chartists, in that pre-railway age, had a very strong sense of localism and historic identity. Chartism was an amalgam, a coalition, of dispossessed people in different parts of the country. The Chartists were very aware that a variety of localities were represented in the country's political system-or that they should have been. They were not objecting to the disparities; they were saying that Old Sarum was deemed to be a community, even though nobody lived there-it was just a lump of ground owned by someone. Other constituencies are equal in historical aberrations. Manchester is a community. Sheffield is a community. Liverpool, Hull and Birmingham are communities. That was the kind of consideration that the Chartists tried to bring.
	The Speaker's Conference on Wales, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, considered very carefully the nature of localism there. Like me, my noble friend who lives there is aware of the subtleties of localism, geography, historic identity and historic relationships in Wales. If I may digress, I am aware of that because my mother and father came from two Welsh-speaking areas three miles apart, but their Welshness and their language were totally different. They were divided by the River Dovey. I grew up not bilingual, but trilingual, because I spoke in my father's Welsh and my mother's Welsh, as well as trying to struggle along in the English language, which I am still trying to master after the passage of years. I am doing my best.
	It is extremely important that these subtleties should be looked at by a judicious body, chaired by the Speaker, with a variety of legal and historical evidence adduced. No evidence at all has been adduced, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, for the figure of 600 Members of Parliament. That is just a figure, worth no less and no more than any other figure. There is plenty of evidence that the size of the House of Commons is not out of line with that of other Assemblies in the European Union or in North America. Some of those other countries have, in any case, federal systems, such as those in Germany and Spain. Therefore, the comparison is totally meaningless.
	It is disturbing that the Bill, with little opportunity for consideration and reflection, not merely decides arbitrarily without evidence, but sets up a yardstick for future determination. Once you have started with this kind of system, it will continue, and its inevitable logic is that the representation of the House of Commons will go down and not up. Therefore, we need to take a careful, considered view of these matters, which are important not just for our constitution but for our historic identity.
	I will say one final thing. The Speaker's Conference of 1944 was an admirable, careful and thorough study of the geographical, sociological and other aspects of the distribution of constituencies. There was quite a lot going on in 1944. A total war was being fought and the resources of this country were strained to the limit. Nevertheless, the Speaker's Conference held its deliberations carefully and at length. It was typical of Winston Churchill, who showed great loyalty to parliamentarism, that he endorsed the work of the Speaker's Conference in 1944. If we had time in 1944 for a proper, considered look at the distinction between national and local considerations, we have time for it now, instead of this botched and rushed procedure.

Baroness Wall of New Barnet: I have listened very carefully to my noble friend. There was a lot of history that I found very interesting. What struck me most was the issue of localism. I find very confusing the position of the Government. They say that they are all about the big society and that people will decide locally what schools they would like and how their hospitals are run. Local issues are presented by the Government as the way forward. My noble friend mentioned that it was fundamental in the conference that local issues were taken into account. However, this seems totally unacceptable to the current Government. Perhaps my noble friend can elicit from the Government why that is the case.

Lord Morgan: I am most indebted for that very interesting intervention by my noble friend. Very often those who claim to be localisers are actually centralisers. No Government rolled forward the frontiers of the state more than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, in the 1980s. Hers was one of the most centralist Governments in our history. The present Government claim to advocate localism. Mr Pickles says that he advocates localism and the big society. He does that by telling councils what their policies should be on lighting, on the emptying of bins, on the number of local employees, on the stipends of local government officers and so on.
	Localism is shot through the history of this country. It is an honoured tradition of the Liberal Party, which was pluralist. Lloyd George spoke of assizes of the people being set up in different parts of Britain. He was a radical liberal and I hope that his spirit still has resonance in the ranks of his mutated successors. The Labour Party used to claim that, but it lost its way. In the era of Keir Hardie and George Lansbury, Labour was committed to localism and local government. It then became a party of centralisers. That was one reason why it lost the last election and why the Conservatives' spurious claims to be localisers made some headway. I was very pleased on Saturday to hear Ed Miliband reclaim localism for the Labour Party.
	The Conservatives used to be a localist party. They used to claim as their patron saint Edmund Burke, who saw localism and varieties of identities and localities as the key to what he called prescription: the evolutionary historical character of a nation.

Baroness O'Cathain: I always love listening to the noble Lord, Lord Morgan. I have been to some of his lectures and there is no historian like him. Perhaps I may ask him a simple question. What has all that to do with this amendment?

Lord Morgan: First, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her great kindness. Secondly, I was endeavouring to say that the Speaker's Conference and any rational detached look at the electoral system would introduce the issue of localities. That is what I was trying to say and, if I did not say it very clearly, I apologise. It is essential to segregate local and national identities. Edmund Burke said it and I say it.

Lord Winston: My noble friend cites 1944. Would he like to opine on whether he feels that Parliament was held in greater respect then and whether that is relevant to how it is regarded now?

Lord Morgan: The answer is clearly yes. If you look at the material of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs in 1944, you find that, when people were asked why they were fighting, they said that they were fighting for Parliament and the Crown in Parliament. That was in the literature. It spelt out, among other things, the imperishable doctrines of the Levellers, who were seen as pioneers of a democratic Parliament.
	I am sorry if I did not make it clear, but I think that a Speaker's Conference would introduce a subtle variety of criteria on the basis of constituencies. You would then conclude the total appropriate number for the House. This should be done in a detached, careful and scholarly way. I hope that even though the present Government are trying to destroy history with their higher education policy, with so little room for history, they will look at the way in which these matters are decided-any way other than this, which seems to me a botched non-compromise and a disgrace to democracy.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town: My Lords, I rise with some trepidation because I am going to disagree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey and, I am afraid with my noble friend, the very eminent professor, who has just spoken. Instead, I would prefer to support the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley, which calls for the number of constituencies to be decided by an independent commission. I hope that the reasons for that will become clear.
	It is probably agreed-perhaps not by the Leader of the House, but by everyone else-that we do not know the right number for the other place. Your Lordships will probably not remember, but in one of our earliest debates-it may have been on Second Reading-my noble friend Lord Dubs made from a seated position perhaps the most effective intervention when he mimed plucking from the air how that figure of 600 was arrived at. He claimed that that got him more fame than all his speeches, but I am not certain about that.
	I am less interested in the question that has taken so much of the Committee's time of how that figure of 600 was reached than by how any number should be reached. That is why I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Soley. Incidentally, he may not know it, but in a book that I have just been reading by Jonathan Powell he is described, as he was at the time, as one of the sanest MPs. He has now been transferred into one of the sanest of our noble Lords-hence the amendment.
	What is of interest to citizens-not us, the political class, if I can put us all into the same category, including even the Cross-Benchers, who as legislators would be deemed to be in the political class-on whose behalf we are all here, for whom we work, to whom we owe our legitimacy, to whom surely we have some duty of care and attention and who are the basis of our motivation in everything that we do, should be uppermost in our minds in this debate. For many years I represented the consumers of various goods and services on a variety of bodies and was in negotiations with suppliers from big business and small business, in the public sector as well as in the private sector. I learnt enormously from those whom I was supposedly there to help but who unfailingly taught me much.
	I think that we should be thinking of some of the things that I learnt about how consumers, citizens, users and, yes, voters see and relate to those who take decisions on their behalf or whose decisions affect their lives, as we debate. Those people want to know: who decided what? When did they decide it? Where did they decide it? Why did they decide it? Those people ask, "Were we consulted? Were we warned about it? Were we thought about in advance?". They often asked me whether those decisions respected their interests and their needs. Perhaps most importantly, they would say: "How can I get my voice heard by those people who take decisions that affect me?".
	That is why, historically, trade unions were formed: to give workers some say. It is why user groups are formed, whether of people who use libraries, parent groups, or car groups-all sorts of groups where people who share an interest want to get a voice. What bigger issue is there than how people can get their voice heard by Members of Parliament, who take decisions that affect them or can influence decisions taken by others that affect them?
	How constituencies are put together and how many there are should perhaps not be decided at all by the political class, which is why I have to differ with the view that there should be a Speaker's Conference. I think that the decision on the number should be taken by an independent group hearing from local people as to how they can best relate to their Member of Parliament, who will vote on the big issues here in SW1 but who will also use their influence and interventions over numerous issues-be they planning, hospitals, education, local government services, housing or private issues, such as complaints against a provider.

Lord Morgan: I have enormous sympathy with the spirit of what my noble friend is saying, but the point is that a Speaker's Conference would only recommend; it would not decide. The decision would be taken by people very similar to those whom my noble friend discussed.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town: It is the decision-making that I am interested in, but it seems to me that we need an independent committee that can go out to hear those views before it makes its recommendations. We need to decide how many electors can effectively be represented by a Member in the other place and not how many electors an MP can represent. Let us look at it the other way round: how many electors can effectively be represented by a Member of the other place? That means talking to those voters and asking them how they see the need for such direct communication with their representative, how they want to feel represented and how they want to be consulted.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I think that my noble friend is arguing both for an independent group and for a Speaker's Conference, because either, in their different ways, could achieve her aim. A Speaker's Conference could commission public opinion surveys and would have the benefit of having Members of Parliament who could give the view from the front line. That would have a more valuable conclusion. I do not see why my noble friend is arguing against a Speaker's Conference, which could do very much as she is suggesting.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town: If I may say so, I think that that is the voice of the trade union of former Members of the other House, as opposed to those of us who have never been there.

Lord Morgan: I have never been there.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town: Indeed, my noble friend, the most eminent professor, has never been there.
	My view is that this should be a matter for the electors; their views should have a big say. It may be that these two amendments can come together to meet the essence of what we both want. I am trying to stress that this decision should not be taken by the political class; it should be taken after hearing from voters, citizens and those who will become voters how they think they can best be represented. How will people want to relate to their elected Members? Will it be by phone and e-mail? Will it be in person, one to one, or will it be through groups? I am not on Facebook, but people increasingly want their views to be heard through groups and texting, along with others of a similar position.
	That may result in all sorts of needs for the size of the House, because it may be better to go, as I think was said on the Benches opposite earlier, for big constituencies, rather like the old Euro constituencies, which were the size of nine of our current constituencies. It was clear to electors that that was not where they should take local issues and that they should go to their councillors, or that they should take just big policy issues to Members of Parliament. I am not certain whether that is the right or the wrong answer. Perhaps we should have smaller constituencies, so that people can meet their representatives more. The needs of the electors should be uppermost in our minds, or in the minds of those who take these decisions, in relation to the number of seats and, therefore, the relationship that Members can have with their electors.
	The same applies to the personal issues or issues of policy that electors have. Again, it may be that people will much more want to gather together, whether they have an interest in the environment, historic buildings, health or education. They may want to be grouped much more when talking about policy. Surely these issues need serious debate, rather than a quick and easy decision.
	I do not know what the right number should be but, from my work with the consumers and users of any service, I know that they want to be asked, to be consulted and to be involved in those decisions before the decision is taken. That is why I support my noble friend Lord Soley in calling for an independent commission to work on this, to do real work with voters and to think about those sorts of issues. Then we might get an answer that is accepted by the whole electorate and provides for a House of Commons that really reflects the will of the people.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I too support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley. It is a hugely important issue-I am troubled that there is some appearance on the other side of the House that it is not-for two reasons. First, it is hugely important for this country how our people are represented. The number of Members of Parliament, for all the reasons that have been described previously, is very important. It is also important for the reason put by my noble friend Lord Soley, and mentioned by my noble friend Lady Wall; namely, the example that we set to the rest of the world.
	Other Members of this House have the experience, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, spoke about, of the Council of Europe talking to other countries and helping them to build their democracies and their systems. I have that experience, through a slightly different route, through the work that I have done across the world involved with human rights organisations and lawyers' organisations. I ask myself this question: if they said to me, "Why have you reduced the number of Members of Parliament? What was the reason for it? What was the rationale? How did you arrive at the number?", at the moment I can do no better than refer to the answer given to the Select Committee on the Constitution, on which I have the honour to serve.
	When we pressed the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Mr Mark Harper, with the question, "Why have you chosen 600?", he could not answer. He told us that it was not a horse trade and that he did not think that it would qualitatively affect the representation of people in this country. But he could not tell us where the number came from. He ended by saying, and here I quote from paragraph 28 of our report:
	"I am not going to pretend that there is a magic science to all this".
	I have been listening to cross-examinations all my life, so when someone says that there is no "magic science" to something, what they mean is that there is no science at all. There is no basis for this figure. I cannot explain to people across the world why Britain, the cradle of democracy, has chosen this number. They will know that people have accused the Government of looking to find a way of reducing the number of seats for the party in opposition if I cannot even explain the Government's own view.
	The merit of both the amendments, although I support the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Soley rather than that of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, is that they do two things. They propose a rational way of deciding what the right number should be and they provide it in a way that is either independent or at least non-partisan. Both have the merit that after the event people cannot say, as has been said in this House, that this is being done just in order to favour one party rather than another. I do not want to be part of a democracy, with the tradition we have, where that is what is said about us.
	What is the process that is reached? I understand entirely that the Bill, so far as the referendum is concerned, is necessary for the coalition agreement. I have no difficulty personally with that part of the Bill going forward within the timeframe I know the Government want. That is understandable. What I do not understand is why there is a rush to change the number of Members of Parliament without even a degree of rational assessment of what the right numbers are and without considering the evidence.
	I want to refer to one of the issues that has been raised, and unlike the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I think it is absolutely a part of this debate on this amendment, and not just for subsequent amendments. I speak of the issues that have been raised, for example, of not just knowing what the people want, or not understanding localism because those issues can be looked at properly through some form of independent assessment. I would not object to a Speaker's Conference, although an independent commission may be better. The key part is the two things which the Government have not done, but which must be done. The first is a rational assessment of the numbers, and the second is at least a degree of non-partisan agreement about that, or better still, independent assessment.
	I turn to the issue that the Leader of the House said, when my noble friend Lord Soley was moving his amendment, was not really for this amendment: the relationship between the Executive and the number of Members of Parliament. I understand it because I was a member of the payroll vote for quite a long time.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we are dealing with that under Amendment 91 later on. I look forward very much to hearing what the noble and learned Lord has to say when we get to it.

Lord Goldsmith: I am afraid that the noble Lord is going to have to listen to me about it now. I have explained to him why I want to speak.

Lord Strathclyde: There is a fundamental regulation in this House that we speak to the amendments that have been moved. I have respectfully pointed out to the noble and learned Lord that the amendment to which he wishes to speak will, I am sure, be moved later on. That is when we should discuss it. He should stick to the rules of the House.

Lord Goldsmith: I am absolutely sticking to the rules of the House because what both of these amendments propose is an assessment rationally based on evidence as to what the numbers should be. It is impossible, in my view, to answer that question without knowing what the relationship between the Executive and the legislature is going to be. Let me remind the noble Lord and members of the party opposite of what was said by the Deputy Prime Minister in explaining the rationale of the constitutional reform being put forward. One of the things he said was this:
	"It is an unambiguous judgment on our part that reducing the power of the executive, seeking to boost the power of the legislature, making the legislature more accountable to the people ... collectively introduces the mechanisms by which people can exercise greater control over politicians".
	These are good and fine thoughts, but how do you unambiguously reduce the power of the Executive or seek to boost the power of the legislature if you reduce the number of Back-Bench MPs and do not proportionately or in some other way reduce the membership of the Executive?
	It may be that it is not right, as the later amendment proposes, to do that simply on a proportionate basis, but in the Constitution Committee we asked both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, Mr Mark Harper, about the relationship between the Executive and Back Benchers after these reforms. I remind noble Lords what they both said-it is in paragraph 32 of the seventh report of the Select Committee on the Constitution:
	"The Deputy Prime Minister recognised that 'There is a strong argument that says that you must look at this and adapt the number of people who are on the government payroll so that you do not get a lopsided imbalance between those on the payroll and those holding them to account'".
	He is quite right. When is that going to happen? He said: "I totally accept that", but it is not happening in the Bill. Unless the Leader of the House is going to surprise us by accepting the amendment later-I strongly suspect that he is not going to do anything of the sort-it is not going to happen in the Bill.
	The Minister was asked the same question. He also accepted that,
	"there is a problem that needs to be dealt with",
	but argued that the Bill is not the right vehicle to do it. What I say, and I care about constitutional reform-sadly, lawyers do-is that this House is being asked to accept, and indeed the country is being asked to accept, a change in the balance between the Executive and Back-Benchers, purportedly in the context of a programme which argues for a reduction in the power of the Executive in circumstances where we do not know what the end result will be.

Lord Martin of Springburn: On the power of the Executive, I accept the noble and learned Lord's case that we have to reduce the Executive, but will he accept that when that reduction takes place those who are left should respect the constitution of this country and that the first people to be informed of any ministerial change should be the Members on the Floor of the House of Commons? I am not putting him, as a former Minister of the Crown, in this category, but there were Cabinet Ministers and junior Ministers who could not wait to get into a television studio, but would not come to the Floor of the House. That is why Urgent Questions were accepted. Complaints would come from the then Opposition about this practice, and now I see that the roles are reversed. We are back to square one and there are Ministers who love going to the media, but are not prepared to come to the Floor of the House. The Executive should always be prepared to get on to the Floor of the House.

Lord Goldsmith: I entirely agree with the noble Lord and I apologise for not realising that he wanted to intervene. The point that he makes is that part of the point of the relationship between the Executive and the legislature-the Executive and Back-Benchers-is precisely that Back-Benchers and Parliament as a whole can keep Ministers to account. If you get an imbalance, where the Executive stays the same but the number of Back-Benchers reduces by 10 per cent or thereabouts, that ability for accountability disappears.
	I come back to the question raised by the Leader of the House-why is this relevant to this amendment? It is relevant to this amendment-to both amendments-because both talk about the need for assessing on a rational basis what the right position should be. I do not see, given how important is the relationship between the Executive and the rest of the legislature, how we can address the issue without dealing with the number of Back-Benchers compared to the size of the Executive. An independent commission could look at the question and make recommendation; so, indeed, no doubt, could a Speaker's Conference. Either of the amendments has the benefit of that assessment.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Does my noble and learned friend accept that, when he talks about the members of the Executive as a whole, he should include not only the Government, but also Parliamentary Private Secretaries, the numbers of whom have proliferated and who feel themselves equally to be within the big tent of government?

Lord Goldsmith: My noble friend Lord Anderson is right about that, which is one of the issues that needs to be dealt with.
	On the essential principle, these two amendments raise the critical question: do we have to rush to judgment about the number of MPs, and how should that number be reached? I am going to listen with great interest to what the Minister says-perhaps he will come up with a better answer than the one that the Select Committee on the Constitution of your Lordships' House was given-but at the moment there is no answer as to why, in those circumstances, the number should not be determined independently, or at least on a non-partisan basis, by rational judgment and by evidence. The case for that, in my view, is overwhelming.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the spirit of Amendments 59 and 60.
	First, though, the suggestion has been made more than once in the past few hours that it is wrong in some way for this House to be concerned with matters that affect the membership of the House of Commons and how those Members should be elected. That, in my respectful submission, is an utterly absurd view. Parliament is one and indivisible. Whether we like it or not, we are wholly responsible as one of the Houses of Parliament-technically, the senior House, although that is not so in practice vis-à-vis the elected House-and we have a duty. That trusteeship means that we cannot avoid scrutinising in the greatest detail anything that affects the future of Parliament as a whole.
	Having said that, I believe that, as has been spelt out clearly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, both amendments have this in common: they are a cri de coeur for a grave and weighty constitutional problem to be decided on the basis not of a stab in the dark nor of instinctive feelings-no matter how genuine those feelings are-but of evidence.
	The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, with whose speech I completely concurred, in a very scholarly dissemination of the problem-as one would expect from a distinguished historian-put the matter clearly in the context of history, whereas the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, put the matter in the context of law. As one who has spent most of his time in the courts, in one way or another, I ask myself this question: if a grave and weighty decision is to be arrived at by any tribunal, how can that tribunal decide other than on the basis of cogent evidence and on the basis of questions such as what construction and weight should be placed upon that evidence and what conclusions and inferences should be drawn therefrom?
	The argument that was put forward-with great respect, I think that I do no disservice to the noble Lord the Leader of the House nor, indeed, to the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Tyler-was this: "We know exactly what the parties think about this and what they have said in their various manifestos, so there is no need to look any further". That misses the point completely. There is every need to look further because we all have deep instinctive feelings, probably genuine and sincerely held, but they are nevertheless no more than feelings and instincts and are not based on evidence. Whether that evidence is gathered in the way that Amendments 59 or 60 suggest or in some other way, provided that it is gathered by an authoritative, independent and well qualified body, our duty in the situation will have been met.
	There are two duties in ensuring that Parliament can decide. As the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, has said, the matter should be determined not by the Speaker's Conference or by any other conference but by Parliament. First, Parliament must be able to arrive at an informed decision on the basis of the facts-indeed, the facts may well be in dispute, and Parliament will have to select which facts it accepts and which it does not. Secondly-this is equally important-the people of this country should understand why it was that their legislators came to that decision.

Lord Davies of Stamford: My Lords, my noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Lipsey have done a great service to the House by bringing forward their two amendments this evening. I think that they have also done rather a good service to the Government, although I am not sure that the Government realise it yet, because they may have provided a way out of this situation that would enable the Government to get substantially what they want with the general consent of the Committee.
	I am trying to act according to what I think should be the principles of the House of Lords-that is, in good faith, with good will and with a genuine openness to compromise. I think that those are important values, particularly in a Second Chamber, or revising Chamber, as this House is. Therefore, I say straight away in that spirit, and at the risk of shocking some of my noble friends, that I accept that the Government have a democratic mandate to reduce the size of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, the Tory party and the Liberal Democrats won the election. Both parties had in their manifestos a commitment to reduce the size of the House of Commons and that must constitute a democratic mandate. We do not necessarily like that-some of us dislike it less than others-but I think that in all honesty we have to accept that.
	However, what the coalition parties sure as hell do not have is a mandate to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons to 600. A different figure was given in the two manifestos. The coalition parties can change their mind, as I hope we are all allowed to do, but the fact is that the mandate does not cover the number; it covers the principle. Therefore, by definition, the number must be open to debate and discussion. It is totally legitimate for us to go into that debate and discussion to see whether we can find either the ideal number-which, for reasons that I shall explain, I do not think we can or will find-or an alternative mechanism for ending up with the right solution. That is clearly what we must do.
	On this side of the House, we should be honest enough to recognise that the Government have a mandate to reduce the size of the Commons, and the Government should be honest enough to recognise that they do not have a mandate for a specific figure and that, therefore, the debate on the figure must remain open. The Government have already changed their mind about the number and, as I said, they have a perfect right to do so, but perhaps they will change their mind again in the light of the debate that is taking place. That would not be in any way humiliating for the Government; it would be very sensible and democratic for them to listen to the debate and then come to a more mature conclusion.
	Again, I may find that I am in disagreement with some of my noble friends on this side of the House, but I am not, and never have been, against the principle of reducing the number of MPs in the House of Commons. I do not feel particularly strongly about the figure of 650, although I think that we would all accept that there must be a limit to the size of the reduction that can responsibly take place.
	I enjoyed what I considered to be an important contribution to the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, although I am sorry that he is not in his seat at the moment. However, I disagreed with him very strongly when he said, "Well, it's all right if Members of Parliament have more people to deal with-more constituents, more electors and a greater population, whether registered or not registered-in their constituency, because they can use their staff to look after them". Having served in the House of Commons for 33 years, perhaps I may say to the Committee that I do not think that that is a good argument. Of course, I had staff-I had very good staff-and I used them to deal with constituency cases, to verify the facts, to look at possible solutions and ways forward, and of course to follow up cases, which is always a very important aspect of a constituency MP's work.
	I also used my staff to draft letters, but I always signed them myself, and I always made sure that I knew the considered advice that I was giving my constituents. It was always I who sent a letter to the authority, local authority, Minister or quango, or whoever I needed to contact to try to resolve the question. It is extremely important that Members of Parliament continue to take direct personal responsibility for that kind of action-responsibility both to the constituent who has appealed to him or her and to the organisation or perhaps colleagues in government to whom one appeals on behalf of the constituent.
	I am absolutely horrified at-as has been referred to already in the Committee this evening-the habit of Congressmen in the United States, who allow their staff to draft letters and send them using an automatic signature machine so that it looks as though the Congressman has reviewed the case when he has not. That is deeply shocking. I would be appalled if that habit came into this country. However, if you talk to Congressmen, you begin to understand, because they typically have 250,000 or 300,000 electors, which is far more than anyone here is proposing.
	There must be a dividing line somewhere. For most of the time that I was in the House of Commons, I had a constituency that came close to having 75,000 electors, so I would not be shocked by that figure-if the Government had wanted to make it 77,000, I am sure that I could have coped with that, too. However, there is a limit, and we should be aware of the trade-off between having a more cohesive House of Commons, with fewer people there, and being able to offer a personal service to, and have a direct relationship with, those who send Members of Parliament to Westminster, which is such an important part of our democracy.
	We have to look at how we achieve that solution and trade-off and how we optimise or reconcile those two different considerations. It is extremely doubtful that this or the other House could ever come to a resolution on that; we would never be completely happy with such a solution. There is no perfect, idealised, atomic number somewhere in the air that, if only we were clever enough, we could identify. The only practicable solution for achieving a majority of a particular number in this House or the other place would be for the Government to take up that number and push it through via the Whipping system. That would be highly undesirable.
	I shall not accuse the Government of gerrymandering, as I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, would be a willing party to that. I am sorry that the gerrymandering issue has arisen, but I have to tell the Government in all honesty that any Government who at any time start directly to determine things such as the number of Members of Parliament will open themselves to suspicions of gerrymandering. That is very dangerous. Gerrymandering is like corruption. It is so awful and so damaging to the legitimacy of our-or any other-democracy that not only should we not get involved in it but we should conduct ourselves in such a way that there is not the slightest suspicion that we might be getting involved in something of that kind. That means that we have to take the determination of the number away from the Floor of this House and the other place.
	My noble friends Lord Lipsey and Lord Soley have produced alternative solutions-very much for the reasons put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, so I need not repeat them. I prefer the solution of my noble friend Lord Soley. I tell him now that, if he is minded to press Amendment 59 to the vote, I shall be happy to follow him into the Lobby. In other words, it is far better to allow the Boundary Commission or some independent body to determine exactly what the number should be.

Lord Renton of Mount Harry: It surprises me that the noble Lord and others have said that an independent commission should decide on the right new number for MPs. What makes anyone think that we would agree with the result of an independent commission? We would surely disagree for one reason or another. For that reason, I firmly think that it is right for a majority in the Commons to decide on what the number should be, as they did by a vote of 321 ayes to 264 noes, because they are in a far more rightful place in history to make that decision than any commission will ever be.

Lord Davies of Stamford: I disagree with the noble Lord. I am quite surprised to hear him advance that position, because I know him well and believe him to be a man who believes not only that we should be guided by the political wisdom of the past, by history and by tradition but that we should not ignore that past and should be very cautious in doing violence to the traditions that have served us so well in British parliamentary democracy for so long. I know that there are many other contexts in which the noble Lord would be entirely with me.
	We have heard figures given this evening-I do not remember them entirely-for the way in which numbers in the House of Commons have varied during the past 100 years. That has been a reflection of the Boundary Commission's decisions, not of decisions taken by the House of Commons or this House to go for a specific number. Those variations have been a consequence of decisions made by the Boundary Commission when it has conducted its responsibilities, as it regularly does every decade or so, to look again parliamentary boundaries in this country.

Lord Campbell-Savours: There is another example. The Liberal Democrats will remember it very well; we had arguments about it in the last Parliament. It is the Electoral Commission. There were many times when the Liberal Democrats objected to our objections to aspects of Electoral Commission reports and recommendations, so there is a tradition of accepting independent body judgments when it comes to issues of elections and boundaries.

Lord Davies of Stamford: I am grateful for my noble friend's support. That, indeed, is the right answer to the noble Lord, Lord Renton. In practice we have accepted these decisions. Part of the consensus on which British politics has been based is that we do not interfere with the Boundary Commission. We let it get on with its job, and we respect its decisions and its independence. It is deeply conscious of its responsibility in the light of the trust placed in it by Parliament and the public. When it has concluded its work, we accept the umpire's decision. That is in the best British tradition, if I may say so.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Is not the problem with what the noble Lord, Lord Renton is saying that he is arguing that the majority in the other place should be sufficient for the time being? That majority might change after an election. I can imagine the roars of disapproval at that new majority if we in opposition became the majority, and the roars of opposition from the other side. After a change of government, we would have as much legitimacy in changing the numbers as the current majority has if there were no interposition of some independent body, whether it be a Speaker's Conference or some other form of independent commission.

Lord Davies of Stamford: I very much hear what my noble friend says. Of course, he has said similar things in the debate this evening, and he said them very well. I repeat that I was saddened and surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Renton, take the line that he took. I know he is very conscious of the history of this country and the history of the world. He just has to look at the history of other European countries over the past 100 years to see the terrible things that arise when Governments allow themselves to use a momentary parliamentary majority to change the rules of the game and change the constitution of the country. That is a very dangerous road to go down. If you compare the degree of legitimacy, public support and stability that we have enjoyed in this country for centuries with some of the histories of countries whose parliaments have not had that sense of moderation, limit and self denial in the exploitation of the momentary majority, I think you conclude that we have been very blessed by those traditions. It would be a very sad day if we were to overthrow those traditions and go down the road which the Government appear to be leading us tonight.

Lord Kinnock: On that point, does the noble Lord not agree that at this juncture we need an independent commission to assess and recommend the effective size, given the objective realities of parliamentary service and representation? We need an independent commission to provide advice that would be accepted consensually, as, under the terms of this Bill, the Boundary Commission, which has provided us for 61 years with a fundamental protection against any suspicion of gerrymandering, is to be railroaded and provided with parameters for its operation. Whatever else happens, it must conclude with recommendations that result in a House of Commons of 600 Members. Given the inexact nature of that, and given the absence of science or the absence of objective rationale supporting the figure of 600, is not an independent commission of wise people a fundamental essential?

Lord Davies of Stamford: I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend. The most succinct way in which to put this issue is as follows. The Boundary Commission, charged with its very delicate task, as we know from debates this evening and from our own experience of determining a fair pattern of electoral districts and constituencies in this country, has to manage three variables. They include acceptability, which is very important and which means the degree to which the parliamentary constituency boundaries correspond to local people's feelings of self-identity and community and perhaps how much they coincide with local government boundaries and boundaries involving other health authorities, travel to work areas and economic and social factors of that kind.
	That acceptability has always been a major consideration in the mind of the Boundary Commission, which has always made great efforts to ensure that its recommendations are accepted as far as possible. That is part of making a democracy legitimate and accepted and therefore work happily, and that is why the commission has always placed great emphasis on the opportunity to have public inquiries on its recommendations. It has not run away from that at all. As I am sure the Leader of the House will remind me if I go on any further, that is a subject of further amendments, so we will have other opportunities to discuss that very important matter. The Boundary Commission has always recognised that acceptability is a very important aspect of their work.
	The second issue is the extent of the uniformity of numbers. The Boundary Commission has always felt that, other things being equal, it was always desirable that constituencies should have the same numbers. Other things are not always equal, and so it has often made recommendations that do not involve very equal numbers in constituencies. Nevertheless, that has always been a principle at which it wanted to aim.
	There is a third criterion, which the Government are introducing now-the actual number of seats that emerge. We all know that there is a trade-off between these things, and that if you have greater acceptability you will have greater variation in numbers because the commission will be more elastic in accommodating local susceptibilities, but at the expense of having some constituencies that have different numbers of electors than other constituencies. Equally, if you enforce a particular ceiling such as 600, you very much restrict the ability of the commission to achieve either of the other two purposes-uniformity of numbers or acceptability. There are three variables, and there is a trade-off between the three. That is inevitable; any system that you had would involve a trade-off between the three. The question is whether you honestly recognise those trade-offs or whether you do not.
	My own view is that of these three criteria, two are recognisable general principles. Acceptability is a general principle. It is something that we can all say is right in theory and principle. We want to aim towards it; it is part of the good in our constitution, not part of the bad or dysfunctional. Equally, it is very desirable that we should as far as possible have constituencies of equal numbers, so that everyone has the same weight in terms of their representation in Parliament. Again, that is a general principle. It is part of the good in a constitution, not part of the bad or the dysfunctional. I put it to the Committee that a particular number is not a general principle. Six hundred or 650 is not a general principle, and neither is 525 or 535-whatever the Liberal number was. These are just pragmatics and incidentals. They are the result, or should be, of achieving the optimum trade-off or reconciliation between the two general principles.
	My noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Lipsey have actually helped the Government, because they have provided a way by which they could achieve what the Government really want-what all of us really want: a system that is as acceptable as possible and that as far as possible involves constituencies of equal numbers. We could do it by leaving it to the Boundary Commission to come, as it always did, to the consequential conclusion as to what numbers of seats should emerge. If necessary-and I agree with my noble friend Lord Soley here-we could set an absolute maximum and give it some parameters. Fine; I would not object to that, as long as the parameters are wide enough for it to do its job without undue distortion and thereby to achieve, as far as possible, the implementation of those general principles to which all of us in this House must ultimately attach the greatest weight and importance.

Lord McAvoy: I wish to speak to my noble friend Lord Soley's amendment, but before doing so I shall briefly draw attention to the comments made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones-he is, unfortunately, not in his place. The noble Lord comes down from the mountains bearing great prophecies of doom because of alleged filibustering on this side of the House. Before I start on the detail of the amendment, perhaps I might give some detail from an answer obtained from the House of Lords Library by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark on the time spent on Bills in the last Parliament between May 2005 and April 2010. The Marine and Coastal Access Bill had 19 days, the Coroners and Justice Bill had 16 days, the Identity Cards Bill had 16 days, and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill had 15 days. It really is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, is not here-

Lord Strathclyde: Can the noble Lord tell us-

Lord McAvoy: Are we bringing House of Commons habits here?

Lord Strathclyde: Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us how many of those were Bills of 18 clauses.

Lord McAvoy: I cannot say off the top of my head, so I give that one immediately to the noble Lord. The point is that there are 300 pages here on the second part of the Bill, which is constitutional. Surely that must be recognised. That brings me to the point. Now I am being subjected to House of Commons tactics and bullying. I thought that I had escaped all that, but I will try to survive. Let us get to the context, which is that this is a constitutional Bill. I have mentioned this before but I still have a slight sense of disorientation, because when I came here I was told that this was a place of revising-a place where you take your time to study things, make points and get on with things-and that the conventions were there.
	Let me say right away-and I can speak only for myself-that the difficulty I have found is that I have come through here at a time of great constitutional upheaval because of this Bill. The normal conventions have not been applied and are still not being applied because the Government are riding roughshod over that process, which is causing problems. Many Members opposite, and, I think, Cross-Bench colleagues, have made the point that people have not been obeying conventions. I have reviewed my conduct and watched what I have been saying and doing. That pressure is not allowing people like me to learn to adapt to the normal pace of events in your Lordships' House.
	In reviewing how I have conducted myself, I have certainly modified my behaviour because I do not intervene now on Ministers or on other Members, because I know full well and have realised that it is counterproductive. It does not work and the House does not like it. I have had to learn that in a compressed sense of rivalry and animosity, in many ways, particularly because the Government are riding roughshod over the House of Lords on a constitutional Bill. That is the only thing that I recognise.
	An independent commission would certainly be far better than what we are getting now. I have a lot of time for my noble friend's amendment, but it seems not to be accepted because I find that there is an element, especially from the Liberals, of, "We are the masters now". It is like Hartley Shawcross after the Second World War. We now have an illiberal, authoritarian streak not from Conservative Ministers but from Liberal Ministers and Liberal Back-Benchers who are being dictatorial in their approach to any opposition. Before Liberal Lords fall about laughing too much, I remind them that Mr Adrian Sanders has called Danny Alexander a cuckoo in the nest because he is more Tory than the Tories now, so let them laugh at that as well.
	Look at where we are. This is illiberal and authoritarian. I take the point of view that consensus, which has always been my way, is the best way forward, especially on constitutional and electoral matters. I shall give an example of why there should be consensus, and I think an independent commission would have a better chance of getting consensus. It is what happened in the Scottish devolution negotiations between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. I very much regret the absence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, because he was a beneficiary of that consensus. Orkney and Shetland got two places; Orkney got one place in the Scottish Parliament and Shetland got another. Between them, they have about 33,000 voters. I went along with that consensus because it is a way of trying to get agreement. You look at situations, and there is good will there. I will tell your Lordships' House that there is very little good will and consensus for the Liberals in my heart, especially after the deal that they have got there. If the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, wants to defend his Liberal colleagues-

Lord Strathclyde: Does the noble Lord think it would have helped the distribution of seats in the Scottish Parliament if there had been an independent commission or indeed a Speaker's Conference on it?

Lord McAvoy: With the benefit of hindsight, yes, I think it would-if the noble Baroness allows me to answer because I am having a conversation here. We are reviewing the legislation and discussing, which is what I always thought the House of Lords was supposed to be like. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that would have been better because, quite frankly, my late right honourable friend Donald Dewar made a deal with the then Jim Wallace, but we have lived to see the same people who were beneficiaries of that consensus and that deal taking a completely hard line and an authoritarian attitude towards people who have got problems with their constituencies.
	I have an amendment for a later stage, and I will be interested to know why Orkney and Shetland is a reserved constituency compared to my old constituency of Rutherglen. The Scottish Parliament negotiations are a clear example of why an independent commission should go ahead. Take the Isle of Wight, for instance. I think that an independent commission would give great weight to the Isle of Wight case. We have had appeals from Mr Andrew Turner, the Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight, and a consensual letter from all the political figures in the Isle of Wight Council. That is very impressive: consensus works. I think an independent commission would have a better chance, and it would certainly look free.
	I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford. I do not think anybody seriously thinks that there are corrupt people sitting on the Front Bench over there who have corrupted the boundaries. I do not think that. If I thought it, I would say it, but I do not think it. However, matters like this have to be not only pure but seen to be pure, and I do not think that is the case when you get political interference with the political composition of the House of Lords. I am very conscious. I have said what I have got to say. I have said what I wanted to say. I am glad the noble-the mocking and the abuse and the verbal talk when people are supposed to be speaking is nothing less than bullying and intimidation and it really should stop. I am not used to it. [Laughter.] Well, perhaps I should say that I am not used to receiving it.

Lord Rennard: Perhaps the noble Lord is an expert in intimidation from his experience as a Whip in the other place. I have just been doing a little maths on this subject, and I think this is now the 19th day that Parliament has debated this Bill. There have been 19 days so far. When the noble Lord was a Whip in the other place on the then Labour Government's Constitutional Reform Act 2005, a total of 56 hours, 45 minutes was spent deliberating on that Bill.

Lord McAvoy: I did not realise how busy I was in the other place. I am impressed that the noble Lord has an impression of my workload there. I do not agree with the grounds for saying that what we are doing on this Bill is not correct and proper, although I agree that there are grounds for saying that we are talking too much. However, this side of the House is subjecting the Bill to scrutiny; that side of the House is not.

Lord Radice: My Lords, I support the proposition put forward by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, although I also think there is a lot of merit in the proposal of my noble friend Lord Soley. I am attracted by the idea of a Speaker's Conference, partly because I sat on one. I am not sure that many Members of this House have been on one. I was a very junior Member of the House of Commons when I served on the Speaker's Conference of 1977-78 under Speaker Thomas. It was set up to consider and make recommendations on the number of parliamentary constituencies that there should be in Northern Ireland. It had a cross-party membership. For the Conservatives there was Sir David Renton and the late Ian Gow. The Ulster Unionists were represented by Enoch Powell and Mr James Molyneaux-now the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux. The Liberals were represented by Clement Freud. I have not mentioned the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, who was also there for the Conservatives.
	It carried out its deliberations very quickly. It took written representations. Nine papers were received from political parties and six from individuals. You can have far more than that but that is what we had. It was a contentious issue that we had to solve. We took oral evidence from the Registrar-General of Births and Deaths in Northern Ireland. The key issue was the population increase in Northern Ireland, which justified further seats for Northern Ireland. This had been resisted by different Governments. We also received evidence from the deputy chairman and secretary of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland and the Lord President of the Council.
	We had eight meetings and resolved, by 18 votes to four, that there should be an increase in the number of parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland, and by 22 votes to one that the figure should be 17. We also decided-this is a matter of interest-that the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland should be given a degree of flexibility to overcome any practical difficulties. We then agreed, by 22 votes to one, to the final recommendation that the number of parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland should be 17, but that the Boundary Commission should be given power to vary that number, subject to a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 18.

Lord Trimble: I congratulate the noble Lord and the Speaker's Conference on the deliberations that he mentioned. However, it arrived at a result that coincided exactly with that which had been agreed as a political deal between Jim Molyneaux and the Labour Government before it was set up.

Lord Radice: Yes, that may well be so but it was a sensible way of proceeding on a very controversial issue-more seats for Northern Ireland. However, it produced a result that, if it was not supported by all the parties in Northern Ireland, certainly had the backing of all the major parties in the Commons. That is precisely my point: it produced consensus, which is what the Government have not achieved with the present Bill. I recommend the idea of a Speaker's Conference or the commission, as suggested by my noble friend who is sitting next to me, as a better way forward if the Government want to achieve consensus. It may well be better for them in the long run if they achieve that consensus.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley proposes that the number of constituencies for the future should be determined by an independent commission and the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey prefers that the recommendation should be made to Parliament by a Speaker's Conference. I do not think that the difference between these two manners of proceeding is necessarily very great. Indeed, an independent commission could turn out to be a Speaker's Conference. However, I prefer the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey because my noble friend Lord Soley has thrown into his amendment a stipulation that the number of constituencies to be determined by the independent commission should not in any case exceed 650. If we examine the arguments on whether there should be more or fewer Members of Parliament, there is a strong case not for reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament but for increasing them. But whichever device were to be adopted, both of these modes of proceeding are designed to be reasonable, to gather evidence, to enable all concerned to work towards consensus and for their conclusions to be perceived to be unimpeachable. That last point is extremely important.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, in responding to the earlier debate-he did so entirely admirably-defended a case that is very difficult to defend. He reminded us that in the approach to the previous general election both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party signalled their view that there should be a smaller House of Commons. He suggested that there was therefore a mandate, but, of course, no mandate for a smaller House of Commons was provided by the electorate because neither the Conservative Party nor the Liberal Democrat Party won the election. Certainly, the coalition agreement has no status as a mandate at all. Of course, there needs to be a coalition agreement and of course this House treats with the greatest seriousness what the coalition agreement has put forward for the country, but this House is not intimidated by the coalition agreement, nor does it consider that it has some special quality.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was of the view that in the end the size of the future House of Commons had to be a question of judgment. That is possibly so but, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, reminded us, when you are making a judgment it is your responsibility to make it on the best basis of evidence and of reasoning. Moreover, it is essential that the judgment is perceived to be disinterested. That is where the Government are in some political difficulty as they wax indignant at any suggestion that they are tilting the system in the political interests of one party or another. I will not impugn their sincerity in that matter but their political problem is in part that there is a perception that they are not objective in this matter. Irrespective of whether an independent commission or a Speaker's Conference were involved, at least the matter would proceed reasonably, whereas the proposition that we have before us in the Bill-that the House of Commons should in future consist of 600 Members of Parliament-is not really even a product of judgment but of an opportunist wheeze.
	The Prime Minister was of the view that Members of Parliament were unpopular and that there was a large deficit, which needed to be reduced. It occurred to him and his advisers that it would be a good wheeze to propose to the people that we should therefore have fewer Members of Parliament. That is the kind of opportunistic gimmick that political parties devise and resort to to get them through their relations with the media for a day, but it should be forgotten just as quickly as that.
	You need a better basis for determining the appropriate size of the House of Commons. You have to start by looking at what those who elect Members of the House of Commons expect and, indeed, require them to do. Above all, they expect them to debate the great issues of the day, to scrutinise legislation and the propositions of the Government and to hold the Government to account. It is very important that there should be enough Members of Parliament who are not members of the Executive and not Parliamentary Private Secretaries on the payroll vote to be able to hold those independent debates. Such Members will take the Whip and they will have their party loyalties, but when push comes to shove those who elected them expect them to exercise a certain independence that is rightly not permitted to members of the Executive.
	I was very interested in and listened very carefully to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn. Any of us must listen carefully to the views of a former Speaker of the other place. He favoured a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament on the basis that it might make for better debate, because he recognised that there is a problem for Members of the other place in getting into debates and having the opportunities to speak as often as they would no doubt like. That is true and relates to the procedures that the other place, in its wisdom, has developed over many years. It is interesting that Members of your Lordships' House, who are more numerous and every day becoming significantly more numerous than Members of the House of Commons, can all individually get into debates when they wish. Indeed, there will be ample opportunity this very evening for noble Lords on the other side of the House to expound their views at length on this extremely important legislation. No Member of your Lordships' House can say that they do not get the opportunity to contribute to debates. Therefore, it is just possible that the other place, in considering its procedures, might consider how it is that this House, which is more numerous, enables everyone to participate.
	My noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Rooker were both of the view that it would be better if the size of the House of Commons were to be reduced. My view is that the House of Commons has great difficulty in performing all the functions that the citizens of this country want of it. It is getting more difficult as more and more Ministers are appointed. We are told that we have to look forward to there being more frequent coalition Governments-heaven forefend, but that is what is anticipated by quite a lot of people. We have seen that, when a coalition Government are formed, there have to be jobs for lots of the boys and girls in each of the parties that form the coalition. We now have an Administration in the House of Commons who have more Ministers than any other Administration have ever had. We are going to need more Back-Benchers who will still have an independent voice of their own.

Lord Elton: Can the noble Lord refresh my memory? I thought that the number of Ministers in the House of Commons was regulated by statute.

Lord Howarth of Newport: The noble Lord will find that, one way or another, Members of the Administration, including Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and Whips, have become even more numerous than they used to be.

Lord Myners: Perhaps I may suggest to your Lordships' House that the number of Ministers receiving salaries is limited by statute, not the number of Ministers.

Lord Howarth of Newport: But even before we saw this unfortunate growth in the size of the Administration, it was commonplace that the House Commons had great difficulty in examining all the legislation that came before it with the care that everyone would wish. For example, the Commons found it very difficult to find the time to scrutinise European legislation with any adequacy. It is an important part of the history of government in this country that over several recent decades there has been a vast increase in the quantity of secondary legislation-statutory instruments-which the House of Commons is entirely unable to scrutinise as much as would be desirable.
	Legislative committees, which used to be known as Standing Committees, are set up ad hoc to scrutinise pieces of legislation, but so difficult is it for very busy Members of the other place to give their detailed attention to Bills that these are now routinely programmed. Members of your Lordships' House will also wryly acknowledge that important pieces of legislation such as this one come through to us without having been exhaustively examined in Committee in the other place.
	Separate from the scrutiny of legislation is the work of Select Committees. Departmental Select Committees did not exist before 1979. They are a source of great pride to the other place and to us all, but it is not disrespectful to the other place to note that attendance at Select Committees is less complete than perhaps it should be and that, because Members of the other place are legitimately very busy on a host of matters, sometimes one has the possibly erroneous impression that not all those participating in the work of a Select Committee have entirely mastered the papers before them.
	The Public Administration Select Committee, chaired in recent years with enormous distinction by Mr Tony Wright, has persuaded not only the other place but the Executive that there should be greater independence for Select Committees. That raises hopes for the future work of Select Committees. It raises expectations about the amount and quality of the work that they will do. That is a large responsibility that falls on the other place and it may need more rather than fewer Members of Parliament to do full justice to it.
	Party committees are a very valuable presence in the life of the other place because they enable the Executive and the Back Benches to explain themselves to each other. However, these meetings take time and, again, their attendance is not always as full as might be ideal. There are also all-party committees that come and go. All noble Lords have a view on whether it is necessarily a good thing that there are quite as many all-party committees as there are at any given moment. However, the best of them have enormous value. I will mention, for example, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Disablement, in which the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, when he was a Member of the other place as well as when he became a Member of your Lordships' House, played an outstandingly distinguished part. I see the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, in his place opposite. When he was the Member for Daventry in the other place, he inaugurated the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives, in which I, too, had the pleasure to serve. It is a very valuable committee, which brings together from all sides of both Houses Members of Parliament who have a particular interest and some expertise in a topic and, through the work of the committee, are able to relate to professional interest groups and others outside. This is extremely important in the representative work of both Houses of Parliament and very important for ensuring that there is a depth of knowledge on a range of specialised topics.
	I mention also the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, which I have been involved with. I promise the House that I will not recite the entire list of all-party groups, tempting though it may be. The noble Lord, Lord Allan, when he was a Member of Parliament-I think it was for Sheffield Hallam-was a distinguished, active and expert member of that group. That is important. However, the reality is that it is very difficult for all-party groups to get a sufficient number of Members in the other place to take a full part in their meetings because there are not enough colleagues to carry out all the work that needs to be done. I could mention the all-party groups that are necessary to enable the House to function, such as the House of Commons Commission, for example, which has to be staffed and served. There is also the Speaker's Panel. The enormous volume of legislation, particularly from the coalition, that is churning through Parliament creates a lot of demand. There is the international work of the other place. For some years, I was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We have an important job to do on behalf of the Parliament of this country.

Lord Elton: My Lords-

Lord Howarth of Newport: I know that the noble Lord is going to remind me of the Companion, and quite right, too. That is one of his valuable sentinel roles in this House. Is that right?

Lord Elton: I did not quite catch what the noble Lord asked, but would he accept that we have a general idea that there are a lot of committees in the House of Commons which have a lot of things to do. The noble Lord thinks that there should be more people to do it. He has made his point; we have got it.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I am infinitely obliged to the noble Lord. He is always rigorous and helpful to the House in exactly that respect.

Lord Winston: There is an important issue and I do not know whether my noble friend has addressed it. With the impending reform of the House of Lords, we may lose much expertise. For example, in my area of science and medicine, we may lose a great deal of expertise. Reducing the number of people in the House of Commons who may have that expertise, particularly scientists who might wish to stand for election, would be a grave problem.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I very much agree with my noble friend. What he says on this subject is bound to carry weight on all sides of the House. We have a scientifically illiterate democracy, but the position has improved somewhat in recent years in that we have seen more people elected to the other place with a scientific background. There has been some improvement in the capacity of the other place to debate issues of science and technology, but it must be self-evident to anyone reflecting on it that this is extremely important. If there is a deficiency in the number of Members of Parliament who are versed in science and technology and able to maintain an adequate debate in this extraordinarily important realm, that must be a worry.
	The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has anticipated my point that if we reduce the size of the House of Commons it will be a lot more difficult for all those necessary functions to be carried out. My final point is that the House of Commons has also to furnish members of the Executive. That means that any comparison with legislatures in a presidential system or one in which the Executive are appointed from outside the ranks of the legislature is nonsensical.
	I hasten to draw my remarks to a conclusion because I know that the House is keen to make progress. I could have said much more, but we will see how the debate develops as the evening wears on. It may be that I will have the opportunity to make some additional remarks, but for the time being I rest my case.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords-

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Strathclyde: Noble Lords have complained for some time that there has been no contribution from this side of the House. I have heard nothing new said by noble Lords opposite over the course of the past four or five speakers, so I wonder whether it would be helpful to the House if I gave an authoritative view from the Front Bench as to my thoughts on the amendment. I am utterly clear as to the views of noble Lords opposite on the amendment, so I will now give a comprehensive reply.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the House intervened to ask whether that would be helpful to the House. I have a sense on this side of the House that a considerable number of Members want to speak. The normal way that we deal with it here is that the Minister responds, but not conclusively. I think that it would be best if we heard from this side of the House, and if then noble Lord the Leader responded, because that is the normal way that we do it.

Lord Strathclyde: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for telling us how we normally do business. It is not normal for us to spend two and a half hours on an amendment-this one-and to have spent three hours on the previous amendment. If we are talking about normality, I rather wish that this whole debate had been conducted in a more normal way-

Lord Wills: My Lords-

Lord Strathclyde: May I finish this point? I said that I have not heard anything new. I have no promise that anything new is to be said, so would it not help, rather than noble Lords opposite continually saying the same old thing, if I now gave a view on the amendments?

Lord Wills: To that very point, I have been trying to get in to speak to contribute something new to the debate, which is something of which the noble Lord will not be aware. That was my experience of dealing specifically with these issues and the process for dealing with them when I was the Minister responsible for them. He will not have known this, because obviously, it is a convention that the previous Government's dealings are not passed to the new Government, so this would be new. I wonder whether he would allow me to share that information with the House before he commences his remarks.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I think that there the sense that we should go on for a bit. Some noble Lords opposite are shaking their heads; there is a very strong sense from behind me that we should go on-the norm should be followed.

Lord Strathclyde: Perhaps I should not have given way to the noble Lord, Lord Wills.
	This has been a great debate. I can tell the House-

Lord Wills: My Lords-

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords-

Lord Strathclyde: No, I am no longer giving way. I have the Floor and I am not giving way to the noble and learned Lord. We cannot carry on if the noble and learned Lord will not give way. I was asked to give way; I will not give way to the noble and learned Lord. He can speak after I have spoken, when I give way to him.
	The Committee will be interested to know that, a few hours ago we passed a landmark where we in this House have spent twice the number of hours in Committee on the Bill as they did in another place, and we still have not completed the Committee stage. The House of Commons debated the Bill for five full days in Committee, and a further two days for Report and Third Reading. Moreover, the Government made use of their ability to programme business to ensure that debate at Report was focused on the provisions which were given relatively less scrutiny in Committee, including what are now Clauses 8 and 11, which were previously Clauses 6 and 9 respectively. So to those noble Lords who said that these issues have not been debated, that is not quite the case.
	What we have seen tonight is worth while and instructive to anyone from outside coming to see how the House of Lords now does its business. This is the last hurrah of the dinosaurs in the Labour Party seeking to defend the status quo. All of them wish to see a House of Commons with 650 Members, completely denying that people want fewer politicians. If there has been one growth industry in the past 13 years, it has been in the number of politicians. They have more in Scotland and Wales, they wanted regional government in London, and now they do not want to see a reduction in the number of Members of the House of Commons.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: In the light of is condemnation of extra politicians, why have this Government made so many new Peers?

Lord Strathclyde: That is rich coming from the noble and learned Lord, who was one of Tony Blair's closest advisers. Tony Blair made more Peers more quickly than any Prime Minister ever, including Lloyd George

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: We did not seek to reduce the size of the House of Commons on the basis that there were too many politicians. At least we were not hypocritical.

Lord Strathclyde: Absolutely, there was no hypocrisy. The noble and learned Lord has to wait only a few more weeks to see the draft Bill that the Deputy Prime Minister will publish on this Government's views on the future of your Lordships' House. These amendments say that this House, or this Parliament, is not capable of deciding for itself the number of Members of the House of Commons. They also would lead to the boundary reviews not being in place in time for the next election, which is of course what I know noble Lords opposite really want.
	Perhaps we have got it wrong. Let us suppose that people up and down the country think, "You know, we can't just get by with 600 Members of Parliament, we need 650". I assume that that will be the Labour Party's policy going into the next general election. It may be that the electorate decide to support the Labour Party in that view, but at the last election, in our manifesto, we said that there should be a reduction. We struck a coalition agreement to say that there should be a reduction and we are now producing it as part of the new politics.

Lord Touhig: Does the noble Lord also think that the British people might be somewhat sceptical about putting 400 more paid politicians in this House?

Lord Strathclyde: I have got no idea from where the noble Lord gets his figure of 400. But of course he is one of the new politicians in this House. If he did not want to come here and he thought that it was wrong, he could always have turned it down, which one or two have.

Lord Touhig: Forgive me if I have not made myself clear: I was referring to 400 more elected paid politicians, which is the view of the Liberal Democrats, his partners.

Lord Strathclyde: The figure remains to be seen. I very much look forward to the lengthy debate that we will have. There was a curious sense coming from noble Lords opposite. Some thought that there should be a Speaker's Conference to make this decision. Some thought that it should be an independent group which had nothing to do with politicians, as if politicians can make all sorts of great decisions about the future of this country, such as on going to war or taxation, but cannot be trusted to decide how many Members should sit in another place. It is the most extraordinary proposition and it is one, frankly, which I find deeply patronising.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Will the Leader of the House tell us the last time a Government in this country determined the exact number of Members of the House of Commons?

Lord Strathclyde: The number of Members of the House of Commons has increased and decreased on several occasions over the past 20 years. Noble Lords opposite are making the case that it is wrong for a majority of the House of Commons to decide what their numbers should be. I do not follow that at all.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the question I asked has not been answered.

Lord Strathclyde: The noble Baroness is right. If there is such an example, I shall find it and let her know.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Perhaps I may advise the House that it was nearly 180 years ago. After that date, it was always targets that were set. It was never caps.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, surely, the issue is not about the overall numbers; it is about how those seats are distributed. That will continue to be done by the independent Boundary Commission under the instructions under this Bill to aim at an average of around 75,000 over the country.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I asked the noble Lord when the Government of the day last decided.

Lord Strathclyde: I heard the question and I said to the noble Baroness that if I can find the answer to it, I shall let her know. Our contention is simple. There is no reason why Parliament should not decide on the numbers of Members of Parliament. We have no need to go to an external body or to a Speaker's Conference to decide that for us. We have all the expertise. Noble Lords opposite have demonstrated just how much expertise they have on another place. That is why we took the view we took. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Lord Soley: I shall say straightaway that from the way in which the noble Lord has started his contribution I am unclear about whether he is summing up the debate. I do not think he is right to do so because, frankly, he has not answered me. If the noble Lord would listen to what I am saying, he has not actually answered the questions I put to him. I understand that the normal courtesy of this House is for the Minister to answer the questions that are put to him. The questions were things like: what does he say when we are faced with a situation, of which I gave many examples, of overseeing elections in other countries where there is a constant expectation that a Government should not decide the size of a House of Parliament? He has also not dealt with my other question.
	I assume that at some stage the Minister will respond to the questions that he has been asked. For the moment I reserve my right to sum up this amendment when people have finished speaking. But I have to say that he has not answered my questions, and I think he knows it, because they are difficult questions for the Government.

Lord Strathclyde: The noble Lord, Lord Soley, has suggested in the most bizarre way that because the Government have decided, and if Parliament decides it as well, that there should be 600 MPs, that somehow this turns us into a Soviet dictatorship and that no noble Lords opposite will be able to go anywhere in the world and argue that we are a democracy. That is completely absurd. In the past 13 years noble Lords opposite decided on the electoral system for Europe, they decided on how many Members should sit in the Scottish Parliament, in the Welsh Assembly and in the London assembly. None of these questions was raised. I do not know how much embarrassment the noble Lord, Lord Soley, can take when he travels abroad and people point out these terrible errors.
	This is my winding-up contribution and my answer. We simply do not accept any of the premises that noble Lords opposite have made.

Lord Soley: I will sum up when other people have spoken. I want just to repeat that the Leader of the House does no good for this House if he fails to answer the questions that are put to him. I would also say to him that anyone coming to this debate out of the blue would think that his recent contribution was, if anything, a filibuster because it did not answer the question.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Soley: I am serious. Let us hear the arguments for a moment. I have brought forward considerable evidence to support what I said about the problems that any Government would have with this. I also asked the noble Lord what he would do if a future Government of any political complexion came forward at the next election or the one after that and said, "We think that this number of MPs would be more beneficial to us and therefore we are going to drive it through". I challenge him to say that he would not fight that every inch of the way. Those are the questions he has not answered. I am afraid that they have to be addressed because they are too important for the House and too important for the country.

Lord Wills: My Lords, I had thought that the noble Lord had given way to me, but I hope that I can now make the speech that I wanted to make earlier, which I make genuinely in the hope of helping the Government.
	As the then Minister responsible, I went through all these issues in a great deal of detail, so I think that it might help the House to know the judgments that we made when we were in Government. Both Amendment 59 and Amendment 60 speak to the importance of having an impartial process-which, crucially, is seen to be impartial-in dealing with these issues. I have already spoken about why that is so important, so I will not rehearse those arguments again now, but the instances that I gave of the consideration that we gave to these issues in Government might-even at this late stage and with all the bad feeling that there is about it-persuade the Government to think again.
	It is no secret that we looked at these issues. Since 1997, as a Government we were embarked on a developing programme of constitutional reform, whose latter stages have been largely adopted by the new Government, which have claimed credit for the proposals as the new politics. As part of that developing programme of constitutional reform, we were looking at these very issues. As Minister, it was quite clear to me that all the issues that the noble Lord and his colleagues are so concerned about were real issues that should be engaged with in bringing forward any measures. We looked at these issues for some time. It is no secret that the amendment that I moved last week-Amendment 54ZA-was largely based on the conclusions that I came to as the Minister for constitutional reform. I hope that the noble Lord is listening to this, because he might learn something about why he has got himself and the Government into such a mess with this legislation.
	Having looked at these issues, we came to the conclusion that the best way forward was to set up the sort of independent inquiry that my amendment proposed last week and that we have again heard advocated today. We did not bring forward that proposal for one simple reason: we felt that there was too little time left in the lifespan of that Government to be sure that we could bring about an all-party consensus on the mechanism. That is why we did not bring forward the proposal, although it was ready and prepared and officials had done the work. We believed that it was absolutely essential to achieve cross-party support for the mechanism. We thought that that would be difficult, because these issues are contentious and complex. As we did not think that we had enough time, we did not think that it was proper to introduce proposals that did not have that basis of cross-party support for the mechanism-not for the conclusions or outcomes or for 650 or 600 or 500 seats-by which we were to get there.
	The reason that we thought that that was so important was not that we were unworried about what an incoming Conservative Government might do-of course, we were worried about that. We knew-I knew-that there was a possibility that we might lose the election and that we would get a Conservative Government. Politicians are always worried about what the other side might do, so this was not an easy conclusion. However, so important did we consider the impartiality of the process that we did not introduce our proposals. Even then, I hoped and honestly believed that, whatever Government came in-I did not expect a coalition Government, in the event that we were not re-elected-would abide by those basic constitutional proprieties, which are now being so flouted.
	Cross-party agreement is so important precisely because of the element of trust. The issue is not just what parliamentarians think about the process and whether the Labour Party in Parliament thinks that the proposed process is flawed; fundamentally, the issue is about the people whom we serve. The people have to believe that politicians can be trusted to run the system impartially, without any appearance of partisan self-interest. I do not know whether the Government's calculations are based on partisan self-interest because they simply have not provided the information, but it is so corrosive when such doubt remains. The Government have ample opportunity to deal with the issue by accepting either of these amendments or by saying that they will look at the issue again. What the Government must do is recognise the doubts that their process has created in the minds of many, many people. This will be poisonous if it is allowed to fester in the way that the Government are allowing it to fester.
	I do not think that anyone on this side of the House wants to stop the Government getting their legislation through. [Laughter.] As I have said many times, I do not think that that is the case. I do not know how many noble Lords opposite, who are commenting from a sedentary position, have actually looked at what I have said. I have made it clear over and over again that I support the objectives of both parts of the Bill. As Minister, I was going to bring forward legislation. We brought forward legislation for the proposals in Part 1 of the Bill and I was preparing, as I have just said, to bring forward legislation that would have dealt with the issues, in the same way, that are dealt with in Part 2.
	I want to see these objectives realised, but I want to see them realised in a proper way that will command consent across all parties and among the British people. The Government could still get their legislation through in this Parliament if they took a pause by taking advantage of one of these amendments to institute an impartial process. Such a process need not take very long-it need not take the three years that my amendment proposed-and could take just a short number of months, if the Government so wished. At least, there would then be an independent, fair-minded inquiry. That is what we were going to do in Government, and I urge and, indeed, beg the Government to follow that example.

Lord Judd: If I had not already intended to intervene, the remarks of the noble Lord the Leader of the House certainly strengthened my conviction that I had something that I must say.
	The more that I have listened to this debate, the more disturbed I have become. Why? Because I do not believe that there is anyone, in this House or the other House, who believes that the state of democracy in our country is at a peak in terms of quality and spirit. What undermines some of that quality and spirit is a widespread feeling among the public that politics as practised in Westminster is a closed community of politicians and that elections for the other House are about people gaining access to that closed system, from which they continue to run the country without overmuch sensitivity about the real convictions and anxieties of the people.
	I do not believe that that is a very mature attitude in society as a whole and it is not altogether valid. To the credit of Parliament, much has been done over recent decades to try to meet that situation-by, for example, the introduction of the Green Paper system whereby, when serious legislation is being proposed, there is a genuine attempt to generate public consultation and debate about the proposal and to give the wider public an opportunity to shape the legislation that is finally put forward. That exists for all kinds of important legislation on social and economic issues.
	Nothing is more central to our democracy than its constitution. We have to be incredibly sensitive about this because the constitution is not ours in Parliament-we are the practitioners within the constitution. The constitution belongs to the people. We operate within the context of something in which the people must have confidence.
	I am by no means the person with the longest experience in our Parliament, but this year I will have been here for 33 years, in one House or the other, and for the majority of that time in the other place I was involved in government. When I look back, whether from the standpoint of being inside government or outside it, I often reflect that one of the things that have gone wrong is that, so often, politicians of good will and serious intent put forward legislative proposals as a solution to problems before there has been any sufficient attempt to build up a widespread understanding among the public of what the issue is that is being addressed. We get the solutions ahead of the understanding of why we are putting the solutions forward. If that is true about legislation as a whole, how much more central it is to the issue of how we handle constitutional matters.
	What alarmed me about the noble Lord's intervention was that he said, "We have demonstrated to ourselves in this debate"-of course, there was an element of sarcasm in what he was saying-"that we have the knowledge and the qualities that are necessary to make these decisions". By saying that, he illustrated exactly the problem. The proposals that my noble friends put forward are not exclusively about the decisions; they are about having in place a system that would enable a debate and widespread discussion to take place, so that, when in the end the legislation was introduced, it would happen in the context of the widest possible public understanding of why it was necessary. Our case is that that simply has not happened on this Bill; it is being rushed through without that widespread public discussion.
	For me, the discussion is infinitely more important than where the decision is made. I want those making the decision to have to make it in the context of an opportunity for the public really to have debated and discussed what they wanted. From that standpoint, I feel that my noble friends have done a great service by putting these amendments forward today. I beg noble Lords on all sides of the House to take seriously the issue of our being the practitioners of the constitution, not its masters.
	In that context, I have been toying with whether I wanted to make the following observation, because it could so easily be misunderstood as playing at partisan politics, but it really grieves me to see Liberal noble Lords sitting there silently while this debate takes place. Almost to the suspicion of some of my colleagues on a number of issues about which I care desperately, I have found myself extremely close to the spirit and values of many Liberal Democrat Members opposite. I have found myself challenged by their conviction on some of the issues about which I feel very deeply. They have always argued that they are about the power and the influence of people in our society. However, here we are debating this issue tonight and where are they? They are locked into a coalition that inhibits them into silence. This is a tragedy in our political situation and I felt that I could not allow this debate to go by without making that absolutely clear.
	Motion
	 Moved by Lord Trefgarne
	That the Question be now put.

Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have listened to a number of speeches this evening. Many of them are an abuse of the procedures of this House and others have been demeaning to this House in the face of a wider public. Therefore, with the utmost regret, I beg to move that the Question be now put.

Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the Companion is very clear as to the procedure when a Motion that the Question be now put is moved. It instructs me to read to the House in the following terms:
	"I am instructed by order of the House to say that the motion 'That the Question be now put' is considered to be a most exceptional procedure and the House will not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House; further, if a member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Question on the motion is put without debate".
	I therefore have to ask the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, whether, in the light of that advice from the Companion, he wishes to persist in his intention.

Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do so insist.

Division on Motion that the Question be now put.
	Contents 219; Not-Contents 130.
	Motion that the Question be now put agreed.

Division on Amendment 59.
	Contents 131; Not-Contents 211.
	Amendment 59 disagreed.

Amendment 60 not moved.
	Motion
	 Moved by Lord Falconer of Thoroton
	That the House do now resume.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I make this application with a view to the House adjourning. Noble Lords will know that the Companion says in paragraph 3.01:
	"The House usually sits for public business on Mondays and Tuesdays at 2.30 p.m., on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. and on Thursdays at 11 a.m. The House also sits on Fridays at 10 a.m. when pressure of business makes it necessary. It is a firm convention that the House normally rises by about 10 p.m. on Mondays to Wednesdays, by about 7 p.m. on Thursdays, and by about 3 p.m. on Fridays. The time of the meeting of the House can be varied to meet the convenience of the House".
	It says that where there are to be changes there should be consultation through the usual channels. We have now had a very exceptional move by the House, as the Lord Speaker made clear in her warning to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, before he moved his Motion. So exceptional was it that the consequence was that the Front Bench on this side did not get an opportunity to respond to either Amendment 59 or Amendment 60. If that were to be repeated there would, in effect, be a guillotine on debate in this House. I am happy to see the former Chief Whip Lord Hesketh nodding. The consequence would be that what makes this House exceptional-namely that there can be indefinite debate, particularly on constitutional issues-would be lost. I respectfully suggest that the House should now adjourn. That is why I have moved this Motion to resume. It is far better that we, as a House, keep our reputation-

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Noble Lords might laugh but it is appropriate that we do things in the right and proper way. This House exists properly to scrutinise business. The prospect of there being proper scrutiny of legislation deep into the night, then again tomorrow, then again on Wednesday and then again on Monday, in my submission, significantly undermines the standing of the House. I therefore invite the House to resume. It would be the sensible thing to do and would avoid the sense that we are no longer concerned about the constitution but are properly concerned instead about the change in the circumstances in the House. Given that there is a Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition, unlike in my previous time in the House it is now possible to ram things through without proper debate. Indeed, the coalition has just done so. That would never have happened when there was not-

Lord Greaves: There is a certain amount of this that I can listen to, but after a while I find that I cannot listen to it any longer without intervening. The Committee started at three o'clock. It is now 11 minutes past midnight. That means that the Committee has spent the best part of eight hours considering two amendments. If the noble and learned Lord believes that that is ramming things through, his brain does not work in the same way that mine does.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I have always suspected that my brain does not work in the same way as that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I have always regarded it as being to my credit that that is the position. We have debated two amendments over eight hours-four hours each. The first concerned whether we should reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600. I regard that as an important constitutional issue. The second amendment that we debated before the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, brought the debate to an end was whether the size of the House of Commons should be fixed by an independent commission or a Speaker's Conference. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, whose brain does not work like mine, or, I suspect, like anyone else's in the House either, might not think that those are important things to debate but I do.

Lord Greaves: The point I am attempting to make is not that the time that has been used up on these two amendments is excessive, although many Members around the House believe that it constitutes an abuse of the conventions of this House. The point I am making is that this is not a case of ramming things through.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, thinks that the time involved is not excessive. I do not know how he voted just now. I assume that he voted on our side in that respect if he did not think that the time was excessive. It is time for the House to stop this, resume and go back to considering this measure in the normal way. That is what has made the House so successful over the past 13 years.

Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord complained that I had brought the debate to a close. I did nothing of the sort; the House did.

Division on the Motion to resume..
	Contents 124; Not-Contents 188.
	Motion disagreed.

Baroness O'Cathain: I wish to ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, whether he is prepared to offer an apology for the personal abuse that he levelled at the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. We have listened to Members of the House and the problem is that the noble and learned Lord deliberately made fun of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Not only was it abusive to him and upsetting to us, it did nothing for the conduct and behaviour of this House. I trust that the noble and learned Lord will feel duly ashamed when he reads Hansard tomorrow.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Of course, I apologise immediately to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I did not mean to cause him any upset. I agree completely with the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. I was teasing and mocking him and I went too far. I unreservedly apologise.

Lord Greaves: I suppose that I ought to thank the noble and learned Lord for that apology. I can say to him and to the House that it takes a great deal to worry me. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, having a good laugh. If noble Lords, in addition to the noble Baroness, and other former members of Lancashire County Council knew the abuse I got there, your Lordships cannot touch it.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: That is what I thought, but I was obviously wrong.
	Amendment 61
	 Moved by Baroness McDonagh
	61: Clause 11, page 9, line 18, leave out "600" and insert "630"

Baroness McDonagh: I have asked for this amendment to stand alone in the group. I believe that it is right to get on with the business of looking at the number as it was adequately debated in the other place.
	I believe that 630 will give the Government the ability to achieve all their aims: to reduce the number of constituencies, equalise the number of voters, and for our constituencies to represent a community of interest, which is important. This is a genuine attempt to be helpful, as was my Motion to split the Bill before the Second Reading began. I wanted the Government to be able to meet their deadline of having a referendum on 5 May and I hope that they understand that this amendment is in the same vein.
	Before looking at the reasons behind having a House of 630, it is important to go through why I believe that the figure of 600 will not work. I am against setting a House of 600, because I believe that it will take away the power of the independent commissioners and put the power to draw boundaries in the hands of politicians. That is a bad thing. When you consider the number of 600 and begin to draw maps across the United Kingdom, you see that it will end up looking like the rush of the former colonial powers to carve up Africa. At the time, they thought that it was okay to carve up countries along straight lines-not to recognise a community of interest, natural borders and other interests. This will be a great mistake.
	I have a previous experience of something like this happening to a constituency where I lived. My noble friend Lord Beecham referred to that example previously. In the mid-1980s I lived in a constituency called Tyne Bridge. That constituency was drawn from four local government wards in Newcastle and four in Gateshead. While I was living in that constituency, there was a parliamentary by-election. I had worked in some by-elections. I had worked in Peter Tatchell's by-election in Bermondsey and in a by-election in Mitcham and Morden during the Falklands War, so I am used to voters being forthright in their views on the doorstep. I have never had as much abuse on the doorstep as when a constituency was combined from wards from Newcastle and Gateshead, which had the River Tyne running through them. People know where they live. In that by-election, they voted with their feet. It was the first by-election for many decades when less than 40 per cent of voters turned out.
	The figure of 600 will also create constituencies that are too large. There are 49 million voters in this country eligible to be registered. Therefore, the constituencies that we draw must allow for 49 million people to be in constituencies. None of us knows what the cut-off register will be at 31 December as it has not been published; and we do not know where the cut-off will be until the Bill is passed. So we need to start with the premise that constituencies will hold the number of people who are entitled to vote. With 600 constituencies, we have about 81,000 electors each. It would have been 75,000 based on the 2010 general election. That is 81,000 if all voters on the register last year are on the new register at the cut-off of 31 December.
	A ceiling of 600 constituencies does not take account of any population move. I ask the Minister to answer on this point. Over the next 20 years, the population of the United Kingdom is, we are told, to exceed 70 million. That increase to the voting population will come through in any event. Over the next 20 years, it may also be added to by, for example, lowering the voting age to 16. I have only to look around in my local authority to see that the rising-fours will add 25 per cent to the primary school population. It is wrong and ill thought out to cap a number that does not allow for a movement of population. It would be much better to do it on the basis of the number of voters that you wish to see in a constituency. But if you do not do that, setting the number at 600 makes the constituencies far too large.

Lord Boswell of Aynho: Will the noble Baroness acknowledge that under the present arrangements, some of us, myself included, have had the privilege or the task of wrestling with an electorate approaching 90,000 already? Some of her concerns about these overlarge constituencies are less than well founded.

Baroness McDonagh: The difference in the situation proposed under the legislation from that which has formerly been is simply that the number of voters in a constituency is taken together with a whole series of other factors, one of which does not have primacy-so you do not split local government boundaries or county boundaries. You can take into account the geography in the Boundary Commission's book when you know that there is going to be an increase in population. You can take into account other physical barriers, such as motorways and so on. In large constituencies you tend to have an electorate with a community of interests which it is possible to represent. A good example of that would obviously be the Isle of Wight. With this, you will go across vast areas where people do not recognise the other parts of the geographical area in the same constituency.
	I need to go back to this issue because I feel that I can answer it. How do we end up with the number 600? I will explain why it would be right to have a House of Commons comprising 630 MPs. How do you end up with 600 MPs when one part of the coalition is suggesting 500 and the other is suggesting 585. I do not suggest that either party is innumerate, but generally you would fix somewhere around the figure of 540. You would not come up with a figure that was larger than either of the two figures suggested if it was not based on something else.
	I have seen the figure published on current affairs and news items, and I have read it in the newspapers. I cannot believe that I am the only person in your Lordships' House who reads newspapers and watches television. From examining them, I know that eminent psephologists of all political persuasions tell us that 600 is the figure that most benefits the Conservative Party. I knew that already because that is what my former counterparts at the Conservative Party head office had told me, so it was no surprise. The problem is that the figure is based on what I would describe as an obsession. There is a belief in the Conservative Party that it was robbed of the elections between 1997 and 2010, and that if only the electoral system had been different the Conservative Party would have won the election.
	I will give three quotes from the debate so far. These are just examples, but I could go through Hansard and repeat them. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, said that,
	"the general election in 2010 ... required the Conservative Party to get 40 per cent of the vote to get an overall majority, but Labour to get only 34 per cent cannot possibly be considered fair".-[Official Report, 15/11/10; col. 571.]
	This is an example of trying to change the constituencies because of a belief that this is what prompts the differential between the numbers of votes for the parties.
	The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, said that he,
	"remembers the 2001 election in which we won the vote in England ... we ended up with 60 or 90 fewer seats, having received more votes in England. The whole thesis of the Opposition is to keep the situation like that".-[Official Report, 12/1/11; col. 1522.]
	I have heard some noble Baronesses opposite even say that they were robbed of three constituencies through electoral fraud. The reality is this. At the last election, the electorate decided that it no longer wanted Labour to be in government. That is clear. However, it was not sure that the Conservative Party was ready to govern. That is why the Conservative Party did not get an overall majority.
	I shall give one other quote:
	"The equalising of the size of constituencies would remove an unfair advantage currently enjoyed by Labour".
	That was from a publication by Andrew Tyrie MP in 2004, with a foreword by Damian Green MP, to which I think my noble friend Lord Soley has already referred. This has been going on for many years in the Conservative Party, but it is apocryphal. It is not true; it is a falsehood. Labour gets elected on fewer votes because in Labour constituencies, the voters are people who are less likely to vote because of their social and economic demographics. The reverse is true for the Conservative Party. It seems to have become a real obsession, and I believe that the Government now need to move past it.
	When I was in the Labour Party during 18 years in opposition, I remember that I wanted to see my party put many Bills through the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They were on matters such as introducing a minimum wage, education reform and reducing hospital waiting lists. My personal experience was that my mother had to wait 18 months in severe pain for a hip replacement operation. I wanted to see handguns removed because of the Dunblane massacre. It is telling that one of the first Bills that the Government wish to introduce would reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 600.
	Why the figure of 630? I believe that if we introduced 630 with an eligible electorate of 78,000, that would make for reasonably sized constituencies for Members to represent. I also believe that reducing the House by 20 seats would take away some of the worst excesses of large constituencies. Like all around the House, I want as far as possible to see constituencies of the same size, and this figure would allow for that. I say again that the average size of the constituencies of all three parties-Labour, Lib Dem and the Conservatives-does not differ by the quota set out in the Bill, but a figure of 630 will allow county boundaries and local government boundaries not to be crossed. That will make the exercise of the Boundary Commission much more efficient and much quicker. It will also allow a community of interest to prevail.
	I would prefer that we concentrated on the number of voters in these constituencies. I think it is important that we represent the public from the grass roots up, not from the top down. The Government have already made it clear that they are not prepared to accept that view, so I am introducing an amendment which I believe will allow them to do what they are trying to do, but in a way that will represent our communities and take the public with us.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Although the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is no longer in his place, I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will be aware that the answer to my question about when a Government last sought to control the absolute number of constituencies in the other place was 1832, which is a long time ago. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will accept that there could have been an element of gerrymandering then and now.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, my noble friend has made a persuasive case that has drawn on her personal experience in a very effective way, but I am not, in fact, persuaded because I do not see what is the magic about the number 630 as against, say, 625 or 635. In my judgment, the exact number should be left to the work of the boundary commissioners, who should be given fairly strict criteria on which to work. That should be the way in which we reach a particular number.
	Before going further along the approach that I would favour, I want to make one or two preliminary remarks. First, we are in some interesting and, indeed, unprecedented times. The political scientists among us-I think I saw the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Lough, here, but he may not be in his seat-must be salivating at the way in which we are making precedents. The closure was moved and it may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and other noble Lords intend to move further closures. That is unprecedented, but it may well be that we are moving along the route of virtual guillotines, as they have in the other place. That would put a very different complexion on the spirit of debates in this House. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Lough, will be rather like Max Boyce-whose name was mentioned by, I think, my noble friend Lord Kinnock-who used to go around great rugby games in Wales and say, "I was there". When he is lecturing to his students about this great new precedent, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Lough, can say, "I was there". He has probably gone home by now, but at least he was there at the relevant time. When the closure was moved-which could, as I say, be analogous to a guillotine-and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, heard the Lord Speaker read out that that could happen only "in exceptional circumstances", I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, where "words mean what I want them to mean". Clearly, in his vocabulary, "exceptional" is a very flexible word indeed. We are moving in this very interesting way.
	Secondly, I just want to comment on the intervention made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Given that we had had a debate of about two hours and 45 minutes, it is normal and courteous at the end of such a lengthy debate for the speaker from the government Front Bench to give due weight to the contributions that have been made, but we had just a few minutes for that. Some might have thought that that was arrogant, but I was prepared to give the noble Lord the benefit of the doubt and assume that that was just an hors d'oeuvre-a little taster on the way-and that far more debate would be allowed, to which he would give a second and far more substantive reply. But, no, he colluded with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in truncating the debate at that stage. Again, that is closer to arrogance.
	Finally, I think that the reason that the magic figure of 600 has been raised is due to the inflexibility that has come about as a result of the coalition. A deal has been done in a smoke-filled room-although perhaps we no longer have smoke-filled rooms-and neither party to the coalition is prepared to move one iota away from that. Clearly, that inflexibility may change. Who knows what will happen to the Liberal Party over the next four or five years? Will there be a formal merger of the two parties? In the recent Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, there were hints that one party might make way for the other or at least tell its supporters to support, as best they can, the candidate who has the better chance. Indeed, we do not know in which party Mr Clegg will be by 2015. Things are moving along, anyway, and that may well be the reason for this inflexibility.
	I personally am not convinced of the case for 630. I do not know what the right number is-I am prepared to leave that to the wisdom of the Boundary Commission-but I know that any number that is chosen will have party-political consequences. If there are party-political consequences to 600, there will also be party-political consequences to 630 and to 500. In deciding on the numbers, or indeed on the approach, a Government can move in one of two ways. They can make up their own mind and bring down some figure as if on a tablet of stone, like Moses from the mountain, and say, "That is the number that we insist upon". The problem with that is that the Government's decision will be tainted. If we accept-as I think everyone should-that any number will have party-political consequences, people will believe that the number that the Government have chosen is the number that the Government think is to their party advantage. However, being an innocent in politics, I am sure that the Government had before them a little notice saying, "The national interest", and that, in their judgment, the number 600 accords exactly with the national interest. However, the public and the chattering classes may be a little more sceptical than I am.
	If one is serious about the numbers, surely one must adopt another device that, in so far as is practicable in the circumstances, enjoys the greatest amount of political support. Otherwise, what will happen is that, just as one Government can choose a number that-rightly or wrongly-the public believe is in the party interest of that Government, so another Government could come along and say, "We will alter the rules for our political advantage". Surely that is wrong. It is wrong that any number should be considered to be based on partisan grounds. The only way of ensuring that the figure is believed to be legitimate and of ensuring that it has staying power in the longer term is for the Government not to impose a number but to bring in some system whereby there is an independent assessment.
	Therefore, however persuasive my noble friend has been-she made a very good and plausible case-I think that her magic figure of 630, although it would be more acceptable because it would provide greater flexibility and a greater opportunity for the boundary commissioners to take account of localism and time boundaries and all the other important matters, would still lead to inflexibility. My judgment is that the boundary commissioners, subject to strict rules, should be given as much flexibility as possible to take account of all relevant criteria.

Lord Winston: My noble friend Lord Anderson was so quick on his feet that I did not have a chance to ask my noble friend a point that is directly related and relevant to the amendment that she has moved. I should like to ask her now, if I may. Noble Lords opposite know that I never give long speeches and I always try to speak to the point of a debate when I join it. I should like my noble friend to clarify how she arrives at the figure of 630. I genuinely do not understand why it is not, for example, 625 or 635. It would be very helpful to have the mathematics behind what she is proposing. I do not have a view about how big the House of Commons should be. I am inclined to believe that the number probably should be reduced but I do not understand how she has arrived at the figure that she is proposing.

Baroness McDonagh: I thank my noble friend and I shall deal with all three interventions, as well as that of the noble Lord opposite. When my noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea said that the number of constituencies has political consequences, the noble Lord shouted back, "Of course it does. We all know that". That is the first admission that we have had in this debate so far that there is a political reason for coming up with the figure of 600. I do not believe that that is a good reason to state what the number of seats in the other place should be.
	Coming back to the three interventions, I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lady Farrington. I personally believe that it is wrong to set in law a cap for the number of seats in the other place. However, in answer to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea, because you cannot do everything that you need to do, sometimes you should do something to protect the interests of the public. I believe that setting the number of seats at 630 will allow that to happen and that we will not end up with a map of the UK on which the constituencies are marked out by straight lines.
	I turn to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Winston. Under the current legislation, county boundaries are sacrosanct and constituencies are not allowed to cross them. Perhaps a small sample of us should go out and ask the public whether they believe that we should cross their county boundary. I do not know how many people here would like to come with me to Cornwall. I do not know it particularly well because it is not an area where we have had a lot of Labour constituencies. However, if we stopped people in the street and asked them whether they wanted their parliamentary constituencies to cross the county boundary to Devon, I think that we know what the answer would be.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I am awfully sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is not in the Chamber, because he could support me in the argument that it would be very dangerous to go to the dividing line between Lancashire and Yorkshire and start interfering with the boundary. As a former Lancashire county councillor like me, he is aware that there are parts of the dividing line between Lancashire and Yorkshire where people insist on having both the red and the white rose, because they still have not finished the War of the Roses.

Baroness McDonagh: I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I hope that noble Lords opposite will not see these points as being petty. These matters really mean something to people; people really know where they live. I have witnessed many noble Lords taking groups of people around the House. It does not take long-it is usually two minutes into the conversation-for them to tell the assembled group, whether it is an after-dinner group or a school party, about how they got their title. It is always the same conversation: "I said this to Garter; Garter said this to me". Great rigmarole is attached to the story, and that is because your Lordships believe in a community. In our hearts, we believe in a place that has a community of interest. It is what this democracy has always relied on.
	My noble friend talked about Lancashire and Yorkshire. I do not know who would think of drawing a constituency that crossed that boundary-I would rather not have to explain it-but it will happen. We are talking about straight lines and not about communities of interest. If the Government wish to do that-

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: My noble friend is being overly generous to the Government. We are seeing the first part of PR put into the British consciousness. PR cannot work if it is linked to a community. You need to break that link of accountability between place and representative if you are going to have proportional representation; that is the very essence of the system. I believe-and I may be being paranoid-that that is the road down which the Government are taking the first step. I am not sure that every noble Lord understands that, but when one looks at the parts of the Bill together and the Government's determination not to split them, one sees that that is one of the purposes behind the Bill.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords-

Baroness McDonagh: Perhaps I may answer my noble friend's point. I will then be happy to give way to the noble Lord.

Lord Glentoran: I just wanted to answer that point.

Baroness McDonagh: No, it is my point to answer, I believe. I shall be happy to give way to the noble Lord afterwards, if he will let me answer. I thank my noble friend Lady Armstrong for making that point, which she managed to put much more articulately than I could.
	If the Government want to break with a community of interest, they should introduce a system like that which exists in Israel. It is a pure PR system, based on a list. I would have no problem with the Government putting that to the electorate. What I have a problem with is their coming in by the back door with a system of government on which nobody has been able to have a say and of which nobody has had any pre-legislative notice.
	I turn finally to the question of how I came to the number 630. My starting point was not what would benefit the Labour Party but the assumption that county boundaries are sacrosanct. I used local government boundaries as building blocks, because most local government wards are communities. I also believe-I know that we will get into this later in the debate-that we will cause terrible harm if people have to seek different councillors and MPs within a small area such as a local government ward. By doing this, we will just turn people off our politics and our democratic system. I used those as building blocks. How then can you get constituencies that are roughly the same size? To do that you are forced up; you are forced to build up and you get to 630. It was not a top-down effort on my behalf. I did not approach the exercise in the same way.

Lord Glentoran: I thank the noble Baroness. I have two or three points to make. I did not talk to anybody to get my peerage-I happen to be a hereditary Peer. That is why I am here and why I have been here as long as I have. I am a Conservative through and through, although I of course support the coalition. I live in a country where we have single transferrable voting and a total nonsense at the moment of some form of Executive which seems unable to make decisions. I for one-I think there are many people in my party like me-am not looking to pave the way for a different form of voting, as the noble Baroness said.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I very much welcome the contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. We have been looking forward to it for some hours since he trailed it a little earlier in the evening and it has been a sweet moment. It has also been a sweet moment listening to my noble friend Lady McDonagh as she moved her amendment. She spoke with a profound knowledge of elections and how they work, and, more importantly, of politics in this country much more broadly and of what makes people respond and behave as they do in politics. I have enormous respect for her judgment. I therefore have a natural disposition to be drawn to her proposal that the House of Commons instead of being reduced from 650 to 600 should be reduced only to 630. However, I have some difficulties with her amendment. One of the difficulties that I find in it I expressed in discussion of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. I do not think that it is appropriate for the Government to determine the size of the House of Commons. My noble friend and I both agree that, for all sorts of reasons that we touched on in earlier parts of the debate, it should not be for politicians to fix the size of the elected House of Commons.
	However, I do think the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady McDonagh is moving in the right direction. I shall probably be more inclined, when we come to them, to favour the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Snape and Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I am very much looking forward to those debates in due course. As I have already said to the House, I think there is a very strong case for a larger rather than a smaller House of Commons. I put some thoughts to the House earlier on why I think the pressures of business and demands on Members of Parliament within the House of Commons are very great and are difficult to be accommodated with the existing size of the House of 650. Equally, I think that when whichever body it is comes to consider the appropriate number of constituencies, it will also want to look very carefully at the volume of work that is expected of Members of Parliament in their constituencies-the expectations, indeed the requirements, of electors.
	As a result of the defeat of the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Soley, we know that a generically independent commission will not determine this, but I live in hope that the solution put forward by my noble friend Lord Lipsey will in the end recommend itself to the House and that we can come back to that at Report. I mean his proposal that the Speaker's Conference should determine the matter. As the Speaker's Conference considers what the appropriate size of the House of Commons should be in future, I hope that it will take account of a number of factors that seem relevant. We all know that the age of deference is long gone, but the demands of constituents upon Members of Parliament will grow and grow-and will grow further should we see the introduction of a new constitutional arrangement proposed by the coalition, at the instance of the Liberal Democrats who have been keen, at least up until recently, to introduce a right of recall. I have been interested by the fact that, whereas all the rest of the agenda for constitutional reform, about which the Liberal Democrats have hitherto been so enthusiastic, has been pressed forward energetically and urgently, for some strange set of reasons we are not seeing them put the case with any comparable urgency for the introduction of a right of recall. I do not know whether my noble friends have any idea of why that might be, or whether it is anything that transpired in the politics of our country in recent weeks and months that could have caused them to have second thoughts and even, possibly, to lose their nerve over this.

Lord Kinnock: While the House reflects on the fascinating question that my noble friend raised about the evaporation of the passionate commitment to the right of recall, I take issue with him on his declaration that the age of deference has long past. I look across the House and see the age of dual but disproportionate deference actually in operation. I see the Liberal Democrats who fought the last election on a commitment to have 500 Members of Parliament in conditions of a single transferable vote, proportional representation, and devolution in England. I see a Conservative Party that fought the last election on an arbitrary and populist reduction of 10 per cent in the number of current Members of Parliament, taking us down to 585. It appears that both have deferred to the other, but the Liberals have done a damn sight more deferring, sacrificing a commitment to PR and devolution as well as a commitment to the right of recall. That is a pretty good definition of knee-crawling deference.

Lord Howarth of Newport: Indeed, as my noble friend suggests, they tug their forelocks quite obsessively. My noble friend makes the same very valid point as did my noble friend Lord Judd made so plangently in the previous debate. It is sad to see the Liberals defer to the Tories within this coalition in the way they do. None the less, the threat that the right of recall might have been be instituted has not entirely gone away because those cruel Tories might decide to bring it in, even if the Liberal Democrats have changed their mind about it for very understandable reasons. If there were to be a right of recall, that would enormously compound the uncertainty that already faces Members of Parliament in their own constituency, which would be yet further compounded by the increased uncertainty generated by the more frequent changes of boundary that the coalition proposes in this measure. Members of Parliament are naturally going to be watching their backs even more than has been the case in recent years. They will be worried that they might be recalled and worried in any case that their constituency will no longer exist, or will be so altered that they will have to spend a very great deal of time and energy salvaging their own political situation if they are to have a prospect of being returned again to the House of Commons. For those sorts of reasons, I fear that Members of Parliament in future are unlikely to give the same amount of attention and energy to their work in the House of Commons as they otherwise might have done. That seems to have a bearing on the question of how large the House ought to be.
	We also know-the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester drew this consideration to the attention of the House some time earlier-that the new means of communication are placing enormous additional demands and pressures on Members of Parliament. I believe that a Member who was newly elected at the last general election testified to the Hansard Society in an inquiry that, as a Member of Parliament, she had received 20,000 e-mails between last May and September. We were talking earlier about the undesirability of importing the American practice of having automatic or electronic signatures-it is pretty well inevitable that you have electronic signatures if you are responding to e-mails-but that will not do. Constituents are not going to be satisfied if they have a sense that the Member of Parliament's staff are dealing with their representations and speaking on behalf of the Member of Parliament, to the extent that the Member is completely unaware of the representations and requests being put to the MP by his or her constituents.
	That is an enormous and growing demand upon Members of Parliament in their constituencies, or at any rate in their offices within the Palace of Westminster or nearby, which again will distract them and draw them away from their duties in the Chamber and in the Committee rooms. It tends to make the case for having rather more Members of Parliament than would otherwise be the case.
	We can also expect, in the very fraught politics of the foreseeable period, that added demands will be made upon Members of Parliament in their constituencies. We are shortly to see expenditure cuts being brought in on an unprecedented scale in this country. Their consequences will be felt not just in the relatively near term but for years ahead, and in the period after any measures that are enacted in this legislation actually apply. In particular, what is to be done to social security provision in this country will produce enormous demands on Members of Parliament in their surgeries, as well as in other activities of their constituency life. Consider, for example, what will happen to housing benefit. People are going to be removed out of neighbourhoods by the force of the new, reduced housing benefit-certainly, out of affluent neighbourhoods. They are going to be bewildered, dismayed and desperate for help. They will turn to their local councillors, who will be powerless. They will turn to their Members of Parliament, naturally and properly, who will be very busy seeking to support them.
	We are also about to see an assault on elective local government in this country. The so-called new localism is not a policy designed to rehabilitate and revive elective local government but one designed to marginalise and discredit it. Members of Parliament will have to work rather closely with their colleagues, who are elected members of local authorities within their constituencies, in order to sort out what the implications of that will be. Among those implications, for example, will be the drive in education policy towards the establishment of more free schools and academies. The creation of surplus places out of a budget for education which will be, if anything, contracting will lead to enormous stresses and some extremely vexed local proposals and decisions to be taken. Members of Parliament will also have to be deeply involved in those decisions.
	We are to see major, gratuitous and unheralded reform of the National Health Service. Let us wait and see what the politics of that turns into once the British Medical Association gets to work, putting the frighteners on the constituents of Members of Parliament. There will be some very rough and unpleasant politics, and very real issues that Members of Parliament will be wrestling with in their constituencies as they seek to rescue or retrieve a worthwhile health service out of the upheaval that the Government have decided that it is appropriate to bring in.
	There is going to be a new planning regime and, at the same time, there are going to be far fewer planning officers in local planning authorities. Planning issues are immensely contentious and sensitive within constituencies. While they are arguably not properly the responsibility of Members of Parliament as they are decisions that fall to be taken locally, all the same there are going to be questions that MPs will be invited to involve themselves with and any MP who cares about his constituency will certainly wish to be involved.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I am so sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, once again, but he is giving us a lecture about all the possibilities of the future and about all the things that MPs at the other end do. What I, and I am sure people on this side of the House, would like to hear from him is what the party opposite thinks and considers is a sensible number of MPs to be elected to the other House.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I cannot, of course, speak for the Front Bench of the Labour Party, but in my own view it should be not less than 650. I therefore disagree with the proposition from my noble friend Lady McDonagh, although she is shifting the debate in a direction I want to see it move in. I am making a case not only that she is proposing too few Members of Parliament-630-but that we ought to have an amendment down on the Order Paper, and probably will on Report, that will provide for an increase above 650. I do not want to detain the House unduly, but I think that some of these issues-
	Let us consider the question of immigration, which is such a staple of Members of Parliament's surgeries. Indeed, Mr Greg Hands, the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham-

Lord Kinnock: Before my noble friend moves on to that point, in response to the interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, which he answered with perfect rectitude and transparency, neither he, I, nor anyone in this House, or indeed in the other place, can anticipate what the finalised policy of the alternative Government-the Labour Party-will be on numbers in the House of Commons. However, does my noble friend not agree with me that it is a supreme irony that the only way for our parliamentary democracy to prove absolutely that the coalition Government are not engaging in gerrymandering is by seeking not to change the number after the next election, which will be won by the Labour Party, in order conclusively to demonstrate that while others may have sought to meet their political convenience by establishing a fixed number for election to the House of Commons, the Labour Party will not engage in the same nefarious practice?

Lord Howarth of Newport: I completely agree with my noble friend. I have said that I do not think it is appropriate for Governments or politicians to fix the size of the House of Commons. That should emerge from the deliberations of the Boundary Commissions, themselves informed by the criteria that a Speaker's Conference or some other independent body has formulated and proposed for discussion and debate in the country and upon which I hope we could reach consensus.
	As I say, I am anxious to conclude my speech, but I just want to say something about immigration. I was mentioning that Mr Greg Hands, the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham, stated in 2007 that he had between 700 and 800 unresolved immigration cases in his constituency case load. It is immense. We are now seeing a tighter cap on immigration brought in by the coalition Government, so that it can only be expected that this pot will boil even more vigorously and fiercely than it has in the past and that Members of Parliament will be very busy with that. Of course, they are going to be busy dealing with the crisis about student debt and, very possibly, with bankrupt universities in their constituencies.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My noble friend has given some examples of the increased workload on Members of Parliament: for example, the fact that with increased boundary changes there will also be a degree of internecine strife between Members of Parliament who will fear that a neighbour, perhaps of the same party, will seek to oppose them in future boundary revisions. Is he also aware that it is increasingly difficult to find Members of Parliament to be members of Select Committees? We pride ourselves on our Select Committees, but even the Foreign Affairs Committee-which I had the honour to chair over two Parliaments and which was, along with the Treasury Committee, probably the most prestigious and sought-after committee-frequently did not have more than two-thirds of its members present. That problem is surely likely to increase.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea must not tempt me to repeat myself. We must not repeat ourselves in these debates because there are many substantive issues that we need to look at. However, I suggested in some observations in an earlier debate that there was a problem in finding all the people needed to be members of the important committees in another place.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I was not talking about finding people to be members but getting them to attend.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I had the temerity to touch on that, too, but I did not have time-because I did not wish to detain the House-to talk about the importance of finding people to serve on the Council of Europe and the NATO General Assembly, and for all the other important responsibilities that Members of the House of Commons, between them, all carry.
	My noble friend touched on the possibility of internecine strife developing between existing Members, who might find themselves in some contest for the nomination for a future constituency. I will give way in a second. I do not think that in the Labour Party people would be so uncomradely as to engage in that, but who can say what might happen among the Members of Parliament of the parties opposite?

Lord Winston: I do not want to delay the House very much, but my noble friend has talked about committees. Is it not also true-I do not think this has been raised before-that Members of Parliament often deal with a large number of very technical issues? For example, as a scientist presenting to them on embryology, it was extremely difficult to get proper comprehension of the science that we were discussing and the ethical issues that were involved. MPs were eager to learn about this but it took a lot of time.
	One of the problems I found, both as a Member of this House and before I joined it, was that it was very difficult to find enough Members of Parliament to attend meetings that we had organised with experts to make sure that there was a thorough recognition of the subtleties of the legislation. This certainly applied to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. That is only one of several issues. More recently, it was also true of the issues of hybrid embryos, when there was great difficulty in explaining those things. Members of Parliament would attend a committee for 15 minutes and then be off to the next job. That, I hope my noble friend will agree, is one reason why he is making a very pertinent point.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My noble friend makes an extremely important point. With the abolition of bodies such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which the Government seem to be contemplating, and a whole series of expert bodies that is adumbrated in the provisions of the Public Bodies Bill, we will face yet greater difficulty in ensuring that there is an informed body of knowledge among Members of Parliament to enable them to debate effectively these immensely important and sensitive issues. My noble friend Lord Winston has tempted me to explore that avenue but, in view of the time and the impatience of so many of my noble friends to make their own contributions to the debate, I ought to sit down.

Baroness Nye: I support my noble friend Lady McDonagh. I have worked with my noble friend over many years. On matters of organisation I always follow her lead because she has great expertise in this area. It has not always been the case on, perhaps, politics or personalities over that period, but this is not the place.
	When I spoke at Second Reading, I started by saying that I thought there was a consensus among all the parties that we had a duty and responsibility to look at legislation to see whether it restores trust and confidence in our parliamentary democracy. I have listened to most of the debate in Committee and I am afraid that nothing I have heard has managed to change my mind. In the Second Reading debate I had the privilege of following the noble Lord, Lord Maples. Unfortunately, he is not present. I did not agree with him then and I do not agree with him now.
	As has been said, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny or any kind of consultation on this constitutional reform. We heard this afternoon-it was actually yesterday afternoon-from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that the Government still strongly advocate pre-legislative scrutiny. If this Bill had had that scrutiny or consultation, more progress might have been made and we might not have found ourselves in such problematic areas.
	I disagree with my noble friend Lord Kinnock-it does not happen very often and I apologise for it in advance-but I understand the position of the Liberal Democrats as before the election they wanted to introduce STV, and therefore saw no need for the other place to have any more than 500 elected representatives. They also wanted to have a thorough overhaul of the state and to introduce a form of federal government which would involve many decisions being devolved to the institutions. I will not comment on whether or not that was a good policy. I do not agree with it but at least it had the merit of being coherent and understandable. The Conservatives also went into the election seeking a reduction in seats of 10 per cent, which would have brought them down to 585. When they drew up the coalition agreement, because the Liberal Democrats agreed to a referendum on AV and not on STV, their proposal to reduce the number of MPs to 500 was obviously not appropriate and was withdrawn. In my humble opinion the next best thing would have been to go back to the figure of 585, but that did not happen. As we have heard in the debate tonight, yesterday and at other stages, we have not really got to the bottom of where the figure of 600 came from. We have heard that savings to the public purse is a priority. I should have thought that forgoing an extra 15 Members would have added to those savings. To go back to my point about confidence being restored, I do not think that it is restored if, within weeks of campaigning for a reduction to 585, the figure suddenly switches to 600, with no explanation.
	I take the point that my noble friend Lord Soley made that, whatever the figure is, if this Government set a figure it establishes a precedent for any future Government to set a different figure. Governments should stay out of deciding the number of seats. The amendments proposed by my noble friends for an independent body to look at this would have been a good way forward. Why am I therefore supporting my noble friend? One of the things that the Government could have done was to look at the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 and the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which both had targets of 613 seats. It was a target, not a specific number that we should have, but there was a feeling that we all agreed on 613. An independent boundary commission would then put that into place. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will say whether that figure was considered and whether the Government considered amending that legislation to make the 613 figure not a target but the limit.
	I support my noble friend's amendment because I think that 630 is closer to that 613 figure and therefore would also get rid of some of the problems regarding Cornwall, Ynys Mon and certainly the Isle of Wight, as my noble friend has pointed out. Therefore, it is a way of addressing the issues. I take the point that both parties in the coalition have put forward a reduction in seats and therefore we must take that seriously. I would prefer not to go down this route but, if we are going down it, we need some leeway in what the figure is, and 630 to me would be the best way of achieving that. Therefore, I support my noble friend.

Baroness Billingham: My Lords, I should like to speak about something slightly different, but I am pleased to support the amendment of my noble friend Lady McDonagh.
	Before I came into this House, I had the great privilege of being a Member of the European Parliament. That gives me an insight into what it is like to represent a constituency because I represented not only one constituency-as most people here will have done or will have associated themselves with-but seven Westminster constituencies. It just so happens that, before I was elected MEP, each of those constituencies in Northamptonshire and part of Leicestershire were held by men, and each of those men were Conservatives. It was a shock to all of us, including me, that I was elected then-I promise noble Lords that I have never asked for a recount-but that gave me an opportunity of working with those constituencies which, although they were side by side, were unique in themselves.
	Perhaps I may remind noble Lords of those constituencies: Northampton North, Northampton South, Wellingborough, Kettering, Daventry, Corby and part of Leicestershire known as Blaby. I can assure noble Lords that, when I spoke in Northamptonshire, I always referred to my constituency as Northamptonshire and Blaby, but it will come as no surprise to anyone that, when I was speaking in Blaby, I called it Blaby and Northamptonshire. I learnt so much working with all those constituencies. Those were places that have developed over the years and over generations. They are not areas from which people move away, as people tend to stay in rural and middle-England areas such as Northamptonshire. Generation after generation can be traced back in those villages. I would urge enormous care to be taken on making too many radical changes in such constituencies.
	Each of those constituencies had political divisions within them, but they also had things that united them. If there was ever a threat of a hospital closure, you can be assured that people would all be out on the streets together. In other ways, too, traditional industries were represented quite separately in those seven constituencies-one need only think of Northamptonshire's old boot and shoe industry. Within a decade, we lost 22,000 jobs. One of my roles in those constituencies was to try to get the European Parliament to provide further support, which we achieved very successfully.
	Noble Lords will also remember that Corby was a steel town that had more than its share of misfortune. The whole of that industry was wiped out in the 1980s, but you will recall that the people who arrived in the 1930s to work in the steelworks came down from Ravenscraig in Scotland. I could take you tomorrow to primary schools in Corby where you would not believe that you were not still in Ravenscraig, because the accents are still so strong. The constituencies were unique and the boundaries really mattered.

Lord McAvoy: On Corby, I agree with and understand my noble friend's point about Scotland. Is she aware that there is even a Rangers FC supporters' club in Corby?

Baroness Billingham: I most certainly am aware of that. On a Friday night, if you asked anyone in Corby, "What are you doing at the weekend?", they would say, "We are going home". I would say, "But you have lived here for the past 50 years". Coaches were lined up in the high street for the supporters-some to watch Celtic and some to watch Rangers. Traditions died hard in Corby.
	What I am trying to say is that we should not upset the apple cart by making radical changes. The development of the composition of constituencies and the way in which they function is important, not only politically but to the organisations that strive to make their constituencies better.
	Finally, let me say that I had a great opportunity in 2000 to look even more closely at the constituency, when I was asked to chair an urban regeneration company in Corby. For five years we rebuilt the town: we built a new city centre, new schools, new roads and 22,000 new homes. One would have thought that the surrounding constituencies would have been jealous, but not a bit of it. The villages worked together in the county council because people knew that the need in Corby was extremely great. They supported the planning applications and the funding, and the result is there for all to see.
	We should look very carefully before we tear up historic and important places where people not only want to live and work but enjoy living and working, and where they want their children to live and work and to have some sense of history. We should be aware of what we have at our disposal and of the jewels that are already in our hands.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, for the way in which she moved her amendment, which I am strongly inclined to support. I come here-as I often do to debates in this Chamber-not having made up my mind in advance and wanting to listen to the debate. Further amendments have been tabled and I will listen intently to the expositions that will be made, but at the moment I am heartened.
	It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is no longer in his place, because his intervention-like that of the noble Lord, Lord Winston-sought a response from the noble Baroness on how the figure of 630 was arrived at and what criteria were brought to bear. Having looked at the previous debates in which I did not intervene and having listened to the debate so far today, I think that for the first time we are starting to see some criteria laid down that could lead to a figure that rational people might see as appropriate.
	So far, we have two parties that have come together on this issue in a coalition. They have both broken the promises that they made to their respective electorates about the number of MPs that they would put into place if they were elected. They then came up with a figure of 600. From listening to the Leader of the House, it seems that 600 was plucked from the air as a nice round figure. Now that at last the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, our expert on constitutional issues, is with us, I hope that we might be able to persuade him to give us the benefit of his experience and advice on what he would see as an appropriate set of criteria that should be brought to bear in an examination of the number of constituencies that we should have in the Commons. I am serious about this. We need a proper debate that is not based just on figures plucked out of the air because they are nice and round.
	In conclusion, although I do not have any great expectation of getting a response on this, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is smiling at me, will be prepared to give us some criteria. Not just this House but the public at large deserve no less. As the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, point out, if we are to start to build trust and confidence in how the Government conduct their business and to open up parliamentary activities, we must set the facts and figures in front of people rather than just do what is most appropriate to the mood of the party of the day. I hope that we will focus on hard facts, real statistics and real issues, so that we can move forward in what I hope will be a lengthy and informative debate that should lead to a proper position being reached rather than something that is plucked out of the air.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, when I saw the amendment on the Marshalled List, I thought that we would have a very different debate from the one that has emerged. Until the speeches of my noble friends Lady Nye and Lord Brooke, I thought that we were not going to touch on what I understood was the essence of the amendment that my noble friend Lady McDonagh has moved.
	I had assumed that the amendment represented not a real belief on the part of my noble friend that 630 should be the proper size of the House of Commons but what, in a traditional Committee stage of a Bill, we would regard as a probing amendment. The reality is that we have yet to have exposed to us any rationale for the size of the House of Commons that the Bill proposes. My noble friend Lord Brooke referred to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who talked about plucking a nice round number out of the air. I remember also the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, telling us with enormous earnestness-and, I assume, absolute honesty-that no political considerations were contained in the figure that emerged. So what were the reasons for choosing 600 as opposed to 650, 630, 575 or 585?
	I was tempted to say that there was some sort of arcane numerology about this. Noble Lords will be aware that 650 is the product of three prime numbers: two, five squaredand 13; 630 is of course the product of four prime numbers: two, three squared, five and seven. I defy anyone to find a similar formulation or number that involves five prime numbers. Maybe my noble friend Lord Winston, or some such person could come up with something.

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: Perhaps I could postulate another figure, given the nature of the debate. Could we maybe go for 666?

Lord Harris of Haringey: It is interesting that the noble Baroness suggests that. When I looked in more detail at the combinations of prime numbers, I was going to say that perhaps the figure of 600 was chosen because it was a round number and that it would be very different from choosing 666, which is the mark of the beast, which no doubt noble Lords opposite would not have wished to use.

Lord Snape: As the mover of the next amendment, let me just assure my noble friend that there will be no fancy mathematics from me.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I would expect nothing less.
	However, 640 has the virtue of being the product of only two prime numbers: two to the power of seven and five, as I am sure the noble Lord is well aware. Actually, it is interesting that you could choose a number that is simply one prime number-I have not done the analysis of to which they will be-but there is a comparatively small number of options that we have considered that are the product of two prime numbers.
	I do not believe that that was the motivating factor in the Government choosing that figure, but the people of this country have a right to know what were the determining factors for the choice. Essentially, we have two options. One is that it is a political fix, as a number of noble Lords have suggested, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has assured us that that is not the case. What is the answer? Has the number been entirely been plucked out of the air, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally perhaps suggested? If so, that is an extraordinary way of choosing the size of the elected House of Commons. It is bizarre. Are we being told that the only two possible reasons why 600 has emerged as the figure is either a crude political fix or a random number plucked out of the air?
	I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would not be party to a crude political fix, nor do I believe that he would treat the country with such contempt as simply to allow a number to be plucked out of the air. There must be a rationale, so why is that not being shared with your Lordships in this House or with the country? What exactly are the arguments? In the absence of being given a convincing explanation that is not numerology or a number that seemed nice-a number that is less than 650 but a bit more than any number that we have previously mentioned in the run-up to the election, which may be the way that these things were done-I begin to believe that perhaps there was some political undercurrent in choosing the number 600.
	I want to hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, reaffirm that there have been no political calculations of that sort. I want him to say that none of the special advisers supporting Ministers involved in the decision have been exchanging e-mails on the subject of what will be the political consequence of choosing 600 as opposed to 585 or 650. Let the noble Lord make the assurance that there are no e-mails between special advisers, that there have been no conversations with Ministers and that work in the political parties has not been done-or, if it has been done, that it has not been shared with those who have been making the decisions.
	It cuts no ice if we are being told that the number of 600 has been arrived at for no reason whatsoever. Frankly, we will believe that it was political chicanery. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, will have to work very hard to convince us otherwise and that there are not smoking e-mails or smoking correspondence somewhere that demonstrate that that was the motivation driving the Government to the figure that has been chosen.

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My Lords, I come to this debate remembering what my noble friend Lady McDonagh said at the beginning about the boundaries being redrawn here in a manner comparable with imperial Britain carving up Africa. My mind goes back to 20 years ago today, when our forces went into Kuwait and we entered the first Gulf War. In some people's minds, that was to correct a cartographical error of British imperialism. When British Governments adopt arbitrary means to achieve quick political fixes, eventually the problems blow up in their faces.
	I remember that, not that many years ago, when the noble Lord, Lord Lang, was Secretary of State for Scotland, he had the very bright idea that he could change the political character of Scotland, particularly at local government level, by taking away an entire tier of local authorities-removing the regions. He was then going to re-establish the political map of Scotland by having a number of single-tier authorities. Much to everyone's surprise, he believed that in some instances, those single-tier authorities would be run by Conservative administrations. As it happened, the neighbouring authority to my constituency-in fact, part of my constituency was in it-was Stirling, which was to be the Tories' jewel in the crown. They did not win anything across Scotland.
	The Scottish electorate turned on them with a ferocity that was even greater in 1997. They did that because they resented the cheap, quick fix of a bit of political gerrymandering. The irony was that not only were we, as a consequence of that victory, able to have the road to 1997 and a Labour Government, but it provided us with the elimination of one of the major obstacles to devolution: a two-tier system of local government in Scotland. There are innumerable examples of Governments-invariably Tory Governments-who have tried to be too clever by half when they have messed about with our constitutional and electoral arrangements.

Lord Snape: It is not just in Scotland, of course, where the Conservative Party has messed up local government. It did exactly the same thing in England under the Local Government Act 1972, which created metropolitan county councils that it thought it could win. The Act was created by the Heath Government in 1972 and abolished by the Thatcher Government a decade or so later because they could not win them. It was at enormous expense; yet here we are debating legislation that will supposedly save money by reducing the number of Members of Parliament. The whole thing reeks of hypocrisy.

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My noble friend makes a very good point, but I will not go down that road. It is interesting that it is not only north of the River Tweed where there have been mistakes of this nature. It is endemic in the Conservative Party and, at the moment, in its running dogs, the junior members of the coalition. The point I want to make is that the boundaries in Scotland have been changed. The constituencies were changed as a consequence of devolution. We reduced the number of seats from 72 to 59. We did so because there was a precedent or a reason for it. As a consequence of the treaty of Union 1707, Scotland was to be overrepresented in the Westminster Parliament because Scotland gave up the three estates at that time.
	As for some of the earlier discussions today about the reduction in the number of seats, such a reduction can have legitimacy if there is a reduction in the inequality of the legislatures. As a consequence of devolution, when Scotland began to get responsibility for a number of the powers that it had previously had in England, we in Scotland we could not disagree with a reduction in the number of seats.
	My noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke and I disagreed about what I thought was the consequence of that, which was to reduce the number of seats in the Scottish Parliament as a consequence of a reduction in the number of seats in the British Parliament represented from Scotland, but we do not need to go into those battles this evening. The point I want to make is that there were well laid out precedents for a reduction in the number of seats. They were on the basis of a broad constitutional settlement, which the Conservatives grudgingly accepted but now embrace because the proportional representation arrangements in the Scottish Parliament and in Scottish local government, which I deplore, to be perfectly frank, afford them a foothold in Scottish politics that they would otherwise not enjoy under any other system. However, that is not what they are offering here, although my noble friend Lady Armstrong suggested that this might be the precursor to some grander programme of electoral reform. Frankly, that is a bit premature at this stage.
	It is clear that if we reduce the number of seats on the basis that we are talking about, the Labour Party might well lose 25 seats, the Liberals about seven and the Conservatives about 10 seats. I am not sure of the arithmetic, but it would be wrong to assume that it will necessarily be to the electoral advantage of the proposers of this scheme that there will be much advantage, because it is so blatantly unfair and unjust that the British public will probably turn on this wretched Government and its associates-running dogs if you want to call them that.
	I happen to believe that in some respects the reduction in the number of seats will not present too many electoral problems for us, but it will leave a rotten taste in the mouth of the British electorate. Electors will see the manner in which this whole project is being pursued: the indecent haste, the lack of consultation and the inability of individual Members of Parliament and interested parties across the political spectrum to have a say in what is happening to areas in which they have worked for over the years. This is what sticks in the craw of so many people at this time.
	We have an arbitrary figure that has been plucked out of the air but which seems to suit someone's convenience. Frankly, I think it will blow up in their faces and in the end will not be that significant. What is more important is the impact in the interim if this is carried. It will have an effect not only on the body politic in Britain but on the actual operation of politics in this country. People have said that a reduction in the number of seats and an increase in the number of electors will have an impact on the job and responsibilities of Members of Parliament.
	We know that at the moment in the other place, every penny spent by a Member of Parliament is under the closest scrutiny, but if you increase the number of people a Member of Parliament has to represent, you increase the workload and the responsibilities of the staff. As has been suggested, there is likely to be a continuing rush of activity resulting from the indiscriminate sending of e-mails that often cannot be traced back to a constituent. You have to add the caveat, "I am sorry. I cannot answer this query until you give me your postal address rather than your electronic address". This kind of thing will increase and make the job of MPs to represent their people effectively that much more difficult.
	It has been made clear that if the economic difficulties that we are facing continue, the workload of Members of Parliament will rise. I represented a seat that for many years had in excess of 20 per cent long-term unemployment among the electors because of the decline in the textile industry, the closure of pits and the like. The point I want to make is that those people did not have just one problem; they had all the problems that poverty brings. It is assumed that somehow we can get out of this difficulty and that there are some bright and sunny uplands that the economy does not really worry about since there will only be 600 MPs and we are going to reduce public expenditure on political representation. That is nonsense. Frankly, I think that in playing with the political system, this Government are playing with fire.
	I do not really worry about the impact of a reduction in the number of seats on the outcome of the next general election because I think that Labour will win it substantially. It will win it because of the daft notions of the people on the Benches opposite about matters such as this. What is equally worrying, however, is that as public representatives-we are appointed, not elected, but we are part of the system-we will see the political system in this country suffer as a consequence of the arbitrary and arrogant way in which this Government are approaching a fundamental proposition: the manner in which we are represented.
	It is always difficult for Members of Parliament to adjust to and work out how to deal with particular areas when boundaries are changed. One reason why my title refers to Clackmannan is that for 26 years it was the one part of my constituency that I represented continuously over the period. Local government boundaries came and went, and constituency boundaries came and went, but I kept a hold on the county of Clackmannan. It is the smallest county in Scotland and the one that was never big enough to be represented on its own. It has a population of only about 55,000, with 36,000 to 38,000 electors, so it always has to be added to other bits, although the people of Clackmannan always say that other bits are added on to us.
	It will be quite a traumatic experience for a number of people in the House of Commons, newly elected Members who have been nurturing the seat for the past four or five years, to be confronted at future general elections, earlier than they had anticipated, with selection conferences and the problems that they will cause within the party. There will have to be completely new strategies developed by these individual Members of Parliament-the people who, in most instances, are blameless of the excesses of their predecessors, but who, nevertheless are being treated with the contempt that many of their predecessors deserved. These individuals do not need that; they do not need the hassle of boundary redrawing; they do not need the hassle of being told, "The job you are doing is not sufficient, you should be doing a bigger one". Because, at the end of the day, that is what this means-the addition of another 10,000 or 12,000 people to an MP's workload. It can be quite significant and quite unsettling. It comes with the job, but it does not have to come quite as early as we are talking about as a consequence of accepting the changes that the Bill would afford.
	The figure of 650 is one that we can live with at the moment. We can consult widely and effectively by means of a Speaker's Conference, or by means of other forms of consultation and we can change it if that is seen to be appropriate, but to pluck a figure out of the air and to drive it through in the arrogant manner that this Government are adopting is, frankly, totally unacceptable. They will face the same consequences that their predecessors faced when they tried to gerrymander and to fiddle with our electoral system and our constitution.

Lord Trimble: My Lords, I had thought of intervening during the speech of the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, but it occurred to me that the comments I was going to make would not be appropriate to address to him, as they relate to earlier speeches. I want to share with noble Lords the fact that a few moments ago I received a text message from my younger son, who is a university student. He told me that he is watching this on BBC Parliament and his comment is that Labour are consistently waffling.

Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive that I was unable to speak on Second Reading on the Bill and that this is the first time that I have intervened in Committee. It is not intended to be in any way discourteous to the House. I shall try to avoid waffling and I shall try to be brief.
	Surely, what all sides of the House want to achieve is a figure which will enable the House of Commons to carry out its work most effectively and at reasonable cost. What we have in the Bill-and I say it to my noble friends who have put down amendments with specific figures-is horse-trading, and that is no way to change the constitution of our country. The thought that it is only Members of this House or another place who should be making that decision, without assistance or consultation from outside, seems to me to be insulting to the electorate. It is the electorate who must decide what they want their Members of Parliament to do and how many of them are needed to do it. The failure to consult independently on the Bill in any proper or meaningful way seems to me to greatly diminish what the Government intend to do with the Bill as at present.
	What cannot be decided, surely, is how many Members of Parliament are required until we are clear what we want our Members of Parliament to do. That is what my noble friend Lord Winston said earlier in relation to the medical profession and I think that we sometimes lose sight of it in politics.
	We have heard conflicting evidence in the course of what I have found a fascinating evening. On the one hand there have been noble Lords like the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, who have said that there is no difficulty in representing a constituency of 96,000, I think he said, and the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who said that he could not understand what either the Scottish or the Welsh MPs were doing with their time because they had so little to do. On the other hand, I have listened to others-on this side, mainly-who have spoken of huge workloads, caused sometimes by complex legislation such as on immigration.
	I have never had the good fortune to be in the other place-not for the want of trying a couple of times-but I have had second-hand an opportunity, over a considerable time, to see the way in which the job of an MP has changed and is continuing to change. That is why I feel that to set in stone a particular figure for the numbers is wholly wrong.
	I was born in 1945, which, coincidentally, was the year that my father was elected as a Labour MP to another place. At that time there were 640 Members of Parliament and, I think, an electorate of some 33.5 million. That electorate has shot up many times since then, whereas the number of MPs has not. My father, as I understand it from those who knew him, was regarded as an excellent constituency MP.

A noble Lord: Hear, hear!

Baroness Mallalieu: I am grateful to that person who knew him. In those days, a Member of Parliament was not required or indeed expected to be totally full-time. He was expected to have another job, and the hours of the House were designed with that in mind-indeed, frankly, people were paid with that in mind-and the burden on those people was very much less. My father was a good constituency MP because he went once a month to his seat in Huddersfield, which was his home town but where he did not live; he had surgeries there, and he reported back on what had happened in Westminster, where he considered his main job was. He dealt with constituency problems but he did them one afternoon a week, when his secretary, Mrs Whibley-how could I forget her name?-used to come to the house and sit down and deal with the whole of his parliamentary correspondence when he dictated the replies to her. As I understand it, when I was asked as a child, "What does your father do for a living?", my answer was, "He cuts the grass and sometimes he writes articles". I saw an awful lot of him because Members of Parliament were not required to be in the House at that time until later in the day, and my father followed his profession as a journalist.
	What I have seen of my friends who are in another place, though, is that it is a wholly different world now. Some have spoken of the difficulties of Members of Parliament attending committees. When I first came to this place-which, I am reminded by my noble friend Lord Desai, who came at the same time, was nearly 20 years ago-I was mildly irritated, to say the least, by the fact that whenever one went to a meeting, particular all-party groups and so on, Members would inevitably come in late and leave early. I thought that it was some sort of bid to appear to be very busy and important, but the more I have seen of it, the more I have realised that it is genuinely a problem. They have such a great burden, not only because of meetings to attend but because the hours of the House have changed so radically over the past 50 years or so that they are genuinely pressed to devote the amount of time that is required, particularly, by committees and Select Committees of the House. They are also dealing now not just with a vastly increased workload from constituents but with a much more sophisticated political lobbying system and with pressure groups, all of which require attention. Others have spoken of e-mails, faxes, mobile phones and other things that simply did not exist all that time ago.
	To put it frankly, although I have heard from others in the House today that they have no problem in dealing with huge constituencies, the Members of Parliament who I know best seem the whole time to be pushed to achieve what is required of them. I do not know whether reducing the number would make that harder. I do not have the ability to make that decision; all I can do is listen to the conflicting accounts from both sides. It seems that there may be considerable constituency variations, some where it is possible for a Member of Parliament to deal with a much larger number of electors, and others where the workload is almost unbearable, even given the considerable support that MPs now have. If it is intended in this part of the Bill to reduce the costs of the electoral system for the general public, I just wonder whether the general public really appreciate that if the burden is great, they will not receive the service that they currently have unless there is also an increase in expenditure on staff.
	I am coming to the end of what I want to say. Ultimately, whether the figure is arrived at by horse trading, as I suspect, or whether it is plucked from the air, that is wholly wrong, but even more wrong is setting the number in stone, as the Bill does. We need flexibility. We need independent people, such as boundary commissioners, looking at the whole process and deciding what is right and, above all, we need the public to be involved in the debate.
	For the life of me, I cannot understand the Government's attitude in refusing to split the Bill. It seems to me that, if they were to do so, it would be perfectly possible in a relatively short time for us to have the debate and for the public also to have their say on what they want of their MPs and whether they want to see a reduction in the size of the Commons and, if so, to ensure that they understand the consequences. It may be that they will do that, and it may be that, having heard those arguments based on the evidence that the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, called for-we have not seen any of it tonight-I will come to the same view. However, I cannot accept that the Government are seeking to make a major constitutional change without any proper consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny and without giving us any explanation of how they have determined that this vital change should be made.
	[For the continuation of today's proceedings, see Official Report, 18 January 2011.]
	[Continuation of Official Report from col. 172, of Monday, 17 January 2011.]

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
	 — 
	Committee (9th Day)

Monday 17 January 2011

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: My Lords, we have heard a number of powerful speeches tonight, not least from the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. My noble friend Lady McDonagh has posed a real challenge for me. She is an old friend whom I greatly respect, but I am having great difficulty in accepting her amendment. As the debate has gone on, it has become clearer to me that there is no way that we should engage in this process that the Government have begun of dreaming up a number and then trying to put a case to justify it. It is not the job of parliamentarians or politicians of any ilk to get involved in the setting of boundaries.
	I share the views of my noble friend Lord O'Neill. I think that this legislation will come back and haunt the coalition. One of the most powerful things that you learn as a Member of Parliament is the respect that people have for their individual Member of Parliament and the deep opposition that they have to any attempt to undermine the relationship between that Member of Parliament and their constituency.
	I was amused when my noble friend Lady Billingham talked about Corby. I represented one of the steel towns in central Lanarkshire that provided a high proportion of the people who went to Corby. On a Friday night in my surgeries, I would have people coming off the bus from Corby to ask me to intercede with the council because they were coming up to retirement age and wanted to come back home. I did not particularly enjoy handling those cases, but I found that when I went to Australia as British high commissioner I had people coming down from Newcastle in New South Wales to make the same point. They had come from Corby and wanted to get back to the United Kingdom now that their working life was over, so I have a great deal of respect for what happens in Corby. The point that that makes is the strong pull that people's origins exert on them and the sense of community that they feel. That point has been made on a number of occasions tonight.
	I strongly agree with what my noble friend Lady McDonagh said about the equalisation of constituencies. When the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, was talking about the size of his constituency, I was forced to recall that, on a Thursday night, I would fly home from here, often with the Member of Parliament for Argyll and Bute, the late Ray Michie. We would usually get the last plane, which got in at about 10.30 at night. I would be in my bed before she would have her car defrosted, after which she would have a couple of hours' drive to get to her home in Oban. Her constituency of Argyll and Bute was so huge that she could visit bits of it only once a year.
	How can you pluck a number out of the air, regardless of how sophisticated the mathematics? I will have to show my husband Hansard tomorrow to prove that at 2 o'clock in the morning I was listening to a debate about prime numbers, because he will not believe me-he will be sending for the men in white coats to cart me away. How can you randomly choose a figure and try to make that fit the nature of the work in a constituency? An inner-city constituency is very different from a constituency such as that of the late Ray Michie. In that constituency, she had a substantial number of electors for whom English was not their first language; a number of elderly people would have no English. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Michie, was the first Member of this House to take the oath in Gaelic. The scale and the nature of the involvement that she was required to have were very different from the scale and the nature of the involvement that I had to have. I used to think that I was hard done by when I had to travel for an hour across my constituency, but the scale of what she had to deal with was much greater.
	We will be talking about Argyll and Bute later, because some sweetheart deals have been done about some constituencies in this legislation, not least in relation to Orkney and Shetland. I can see why a sweetheart deal has been done there and it is not to do with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. There is an argument for special treatment for a constituency that is composed of a number of islands and is surrounded by water. There is a similar case for the Western Isles, but why not for constituencies such as Argyll and Bute or the Isle of Wight? Why is there this aberration of putting Cornwall and Devon together?
	That is one reason why my noble friend has put me in an awkward position. I believe that these issues have to be taken into account, but we are the wrong people to do it. I listened with great interest to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Soley and Lord Morgan, on the previous amendment. They made powerful arguments. The view is inescapable that politicians should not be involved in setting parliamentary boundaries. Somebody said earlier that we are not Zimbabwe; we are not a country that mangles its constitution to fit political need. However, to go down the route of this legislation would put us into that camp.
	I am undecided whether, if my noble friend presses her amendment to a vote, I can support her, although I think that she has made a powerful point. In normal circumstances, her amendment would be regarded as a probing amendment, but we have seen by the action of Members on the government Benches that the normal conventions of this House are now suspended. That means that it is difficult to go down the route of moving a probing amendment to get a detailed response. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, love him though I do, has never yet given us a straight answer on the criteria for the establishment of these constituencies other than plucking a number out of the air. I hope that my noble friend will forgive me if I feel that I cannot support her in the Lobbies tonight, but I think that she has done a very useful job in exposing this issue, as the noble Lords, Lord Snape and Lord Kennedy, are doing by also choosing numbers out of thin air, although the fact that Labour Members are choosing numbers out of thin air does not make it any more acceptable than coalition Members doing so.

Lord Kinnock: Before my noble friend sits down, I ask her to reflect on the fact that, during this debate, I have had an illuminating thought that has instructed me on why the Government have adopted the figure of 600. I hope that, in his response to the debate, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, may be able to say yea or nay to this rationale. It appears to me that the charm, strength and, indeed, magic of the figure 600 is that it is not 585, which was the figure chosen by the Conservative Party to include in its manifesto at the last election. However, in the context of coalition, it would have been unacceptable to the other part of the coalition to adopt in legislation that manifesto proposal. Clearly, there was no possibility of the Conservative Party accepting the bundle of changes that were offered in the Liberal Democrats' manifesto undertakings of 500 plus PR plus devolution in England, as well as many other things.
	We have consequently arrived at a figure of 600, which is a kind of orphan. It had no parentage in anyone's manifesto and is entirely the illegitimate offspring of a shotgun wedding. For the sake of the House and the constitution and security of this country, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will be able to demonstrate, if I am wrong, why I am wrong, or accept my reasoning. It will be the first time that we have had a rational explanation of the 600 figure.

Lord Glentoran: So what?

Lord Trimble: Will the-

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: I may be a new Member of this House, but I know that you do not get sequential interventions without a response. I am grateful to my noble friend for raising those powerful and valid points. I have long wondered why, if one party wanted 500 and the other wanted 585, we did not have 542 and half. So this is a random figure that has been plucked out of thin air. It ill behoves the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to keep avoiding the issue of why it is 600. Or is it exactly as the Leader of the House said, a nice, round number? If he thinks we believe that, he must think that we are demented.

Lord Liddle: My Lords, I support the amendment. I strongly believe that we need a larger House of Commons than 600. I recognise that, in advocating a House of Commons larger than 600, one exposes oneself to the criticism that one is not in favour of cutting the cost of politics. If that was the reason that the Government made this proposal, it is a poor one. We are trying to cut the cost of politics at the expense of better representation of remote and isolated communities and respect for the historic traditions which have always been taken into account by the Boundary Commission in setting boundaries hitherto.
	I illustrate that point with reference to my home county of Cumberland, now Cumbria, in which I was born in 1947. Cumbria is an interesting case. On two separate occasions, the Boundary Commission has supported the retention of six Members of Parliament for the county, even though on a strict application of the present quota there would only be justification for five. It has done so on the basis precisely of its ability as a Boundary Commission to respect community ties and historic traditions.
	I will expand on this point. I recognise, of course, that simply increasing the size of the House of Commons is itself insufficient to deal with this problem, but it is necessary. We must also secure amendments on the Boundary Commission's degree of discretion in fixing constituency sizes and the criteria it should take into account.
	The situation in Cumbria illustrates this point. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord McNally, sneering at this point, because it is the heart of the argument about representation. It is very important that the Government explain why they feel that they can sweep aside how the Boundary Commission has operated over decades, and why they can say that they have the wisdom to substitute some arbitrary system in place of the Boundary Commission that has worked with a great degree of consensus over time.
	Cumberland used to have five Members of Parliament: the ancient borough of Carlisle, the industrial constituencies of Whitehaven and Workington on the west coast, and the agricultural and rural constituencies of Penrith and north Cumberland. The number of agricultural and rural constituencies was reduced to one in 1950 when the present constituency of Penrith and The Border was created which went on to be represented in a distinguished way by the late Viscount Whitelaw.
	In 1973, there was a similar, top-down reorganisation of things. Top-down reorganisations are never a good idea, as I am glad to see the Leader of the Labour Party, Mr Ed Miliband, now recognises. The local government reorganisation led to the creation of the county of Cumbria, merging Cumberland and Westmoreland with the Furness and Lonsdale parts of Lancashire. In the 1983 boundary review, Penrith and The Border, which had been geographically entirely within the county of Cumberland, was extended to include north Westmoreland. The constituency of Westmoreland was extended to take in parts of what had been Lancashire.
	That set the present pattern whereby Cumbria has six MPs. It is arguable that that represents distinct communities. There is Carlisle, Workington and Whitehaven on the west coat, the constituency of Westmoreland based on Kendal, Barrow and the Furness area in the south of the county and a big rural constituency of Penrith and The Border, based on the market towns of Appleby, Brampton, Penrith and Wigton, now represented by the able and interesting Rory Stewart.
	When the Boundary Commission looked at the numbers last time, as was the case the previous time the quota only gave Cumbria an entitlement to fewer than 5.5 Members of Parliament; I think the figure was 5.48. Despite being entitled to only 5.48 Members of Parliament, they none the less agreed that Cumbria should continue to have six. If we were to have 600 MPs, we would definitely only have five seats in Cumbria and the Boundary Commission would have hardly any flexibility to take into account community considerations. As a result of reducing the number of Members of Parliament in my part of the country, representation on the basis of natural communities would be completely destroyed. The city of Carlisle would have to take in a vast and different rural area around it. Barrow would have to extend outside its natural area of Furness. Westmoreland would become enormous once again, as it would have to take back the bits of Westmoreland in Appleby and that area that had gone to Penrith and The Border.
	The constituency of Penrith and The Border, instead of being one of the most rural and agricultural seats in England, would become a strange mish-mash of an old industrial area, probably Maryport, with some of the other market towns.
	I am not raising this point because I care about the political future of Rory Stewart. Actually, I do care, because he is an interesting guy. But there is the wider point that this reorganisation, which would be made inevitable by the rigidity of government by numbers that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, wants to impose on us, would completely ignore natural communities and be a great mistake.
	I do not understand why the Liberal Democrats have gone along with this; or I do, because it is part of a deal on AV. What I find most extraordinary is that the Conservative Party should think that it supports this kind of arrangement. The Conservative Party is completely careless with local traditions on this issue. The Conservative Party claims to speak for the big society, and is completely careless with the notion of natural communities. The Prime Minister talks about how we are all in this together but is completely careless in trying to create consensus on a local basis about what is a decent basis of representation.
	The Government should think again. These are serious issues, not just party political trivialities. The Government have as yet given us no credible explanation of why they think it necessary to make these changes.

Lord Bach: My Lords, the Committee owe a great debt of thanks to my noble friend Lady McDonagh for moving the amendment, to which she spoke so well, as have others. Her analysis of the role of constituencies and how important they are was worth listening to, and I hope it was taken on board on the government Benches, as it clearly was on our own. It was a genuine attempt to help the Government get this vexed issue right.
	Before I come to the Front Benches' response, I accept that my noble friend's amendment is partly a probing amendment but also means what it says. It was great to hear from other noble Lords on this issue. How proud the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, must be of his son who is here watching these proceedings, but not half as proud as his son will be of him, not just for being here but, more seriously, for the important role he has played over the past years in making sure that Northern Ireland is a proper and sane country. We share that view.
	I do not think she is in her place, but my noble friend Lady Billingham talked about her seven constituencies when she was an MEP. I mention her particularly because I was the chair of the Euro-constituency for that entire time, and what a magnificent MEP she was. I was a bit disappointed when my noble friend Lord Kinnock talked about the explanation of the 600 seats, because I had been totally convinced just half an hour before by my noble friend Lord Harris's explanation. I do not know which to choose now. There must be an explanation, I am sure. I hope that we will hear about it from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, but I will not hold my breath.
	As far as constituencies are concerned, there is an extraordinarily good quote from the late Lord Callaghan, who said in a House of Commons debate as long ago as 19 June 1969:
	"Constituencies are not merely areas bounded by a line on a map; they are living communities with a unity, a history and a personality of their own".-[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/69; col. 742.]
	We on this side say "Hear, hear!" to that, and I know that many on the other side really believe it to be true. Constituencies are much more than just a line on a map. The great danger of the approach that gives an exact number of constituencies that there must be is that the constituencies are in danger of becoming lines on maps.
	All the amendments in this group and those that follow are clearly better than what the Bill offers in terms of quality of representation, disruption to constituencies and all the other arguments. However, they all fall into the trap that an exact number of seats proposed by the Government and passed by Parliament is a grievous fault. We heard at the start of the debate from my noble friend Lady Farrington that the last time that there was an exact number of seats decreed by Parliament was 1832. That may be some explanation of why the Deputy Prime Minister claims that these reforms are the greatest democratic reform since 1832; I cannot think of another explanation.
	We and the Government have been forgetting that Boundary Commissions and Parliaments in the past have been very careful in the language that they have used in setting out the existing rules, as my noble friend Lady Nye mentioned. If the Committee will forgive me, I will remind it of the existing 1986 rules passed by a Conservative Government:
	"1.- (1) The number of constituencies in Great Britain shall not be substantially greater or less than 613.
	(2) The number of constituencies in Scotland shall not be less than 71. (3) The number of constituencies in Wales shall not be less than 35. (4)"-
	this is a bit of a mouthful-
	"The number of constituencies in Northern Ireland shall not be greater than 18 or less than 16, and shall be 17 unless it appears to the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland that Northern Ireland should for the time being be divided into 16 or (as the case may be) into 18 constituencies".
	That is not quite as clear, but the rest of it is beautifully and deliberately phrased so as not to set an absolutely exact number. There is great strength in a system that says that Parliament sets out a rough guide of how many Members of Parliament there should be, but the independent Boundary Commission has the job of actually deciding how many seats there are. It is a strong argument and it diminishes the danger the Government find themselves in of setting an exact number and then being accused of trying to fix the system. I hope that is not what the Government intend to do. There is a danger that that is what they will be perceived as doing if they do not move off this idea of a fixed number.

Lord Rennard: The noble Lord suggests that it would be "a grievous fault" for Parliament to fix a precise number of Members of Parliament. Would he not accept that in many countries, probably most democracies, there is a written constitution with a fixed number of MPs that is invariably approved by Parliament? These other countries do not consider it to be a grievous fault at all for Parliament to set a precise number of MPs.

Lord Bach: Well, other countries, as the noble Lord knows, work under a written constitution, and to change the written constitution requires in each country certain statutory measures, majorities et cetera. That cannot be compared exactly with the United Kingdom. We are extremely proud of our unwritten constitution. Well, some of us are; and in particular about this aspect of it, where we are very careful that Governments through Parliament do not take upon themselves something so that they can be accused of fixing the system.
	It is a really British way of doing it. I accept that that is what the noble Lord is saying, but it is the way that it has worked over many years, where the Boundary Commission has the final say as to the number, based on the rules that it has to work under-

Lord Kinnock: Could he also add that the British system, as it has existed since 1949 in the establishment of the modern Boundary Commission, is the product of the experience of the long number of years between pre-democratic Britain and fully enfranchised Britain, in what can be recognised to be a modern democracy? There was a conscious decision in the late 1940s by the very large majority Labour Government to introduce the Boundary Commission to provide a safety measure against the possibility of the restoration of arbitrary decisions by Government majorities of a fixed number of seats which suited the purposes of those in power.

Lord Bach: That analysis also must be correct. It is not something that any Government, of whatever political complexion, should muck around with easily. Sometimes during these debates, it has not been clear that the Government have really understood why it is that we are arguing from this side that this is a precious system and one that should be kept unless there are absolutely outstanding reasons why it should be changed. We do not think that there are such outstanding reasons.
	The quotation I read from the existing rules, which suggested 613 seats for Great Britain, plus the 17-odd seats for Northern Ireland, comes to the 630 seats for the United Kingdom, which is what my noble friend Lady McDonagh is proposing in her amendment. Our view is-and we argued this in our amendment earlier today-that it is best not to set a complete amount. If it is wrong for the Government to set a fixed amount, it is also wrong for amendments to do so. But, as a probing amendment, it asks what the Government intend to do; we asked at Second Reading, and will continue to ask, why 600? This debate is one that gives the opportunity for the Minister to tell us, finally, why it is that 600 was reached and why they will not be more flexible in their attitude to this issue.

Lord McNally: My Lords, hearing that the son of the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, is watching, I am reminded that the great and late Les Dawson used to occasionally during his performances turn and say, "And first a word to our viewer". The word to our viewer, just so that he should fully understand it, is that the official Opposition is fighting line by line two interconnected reforms. These have been resisted by a party which, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said earlier today, less than a year ago introduced a constitutional reform Bill with 13 unrelated constitutional reforms. So let us have fewer crocodile tears.
	We have heard a lot of assurances about the good intentions of the Opposition. The noble Baroness said in introducing that she was insisting on decoupling, but anybody looking at this list of amendments knows that that kind of decoupling works against any rational examination at Committee stage of a Bill like this, or indeed any other Bill. I merely put that on the record. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, suggested, the constitutional historians and experts will be looking at this matter. I ask them to look at the Hansard record of how the Bill has been dealt with and to draw their own conclusions.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: Would the noble Lord not agree that we should place on record what happened to our legislation 12 months ago? At that time the Labour Government had a majority in the Commons. When this House dealt with these constitutional issues, on the occasions when the Lib Dems and the Conservatives chose to come together, they had a majority and defeated us frequently.

Lord McNally: On those constitutional reforms, we very rarely went with the Conservatives. On the CRAG Bill, as those on the Front Bench know, we were willing to give them full support. They should not come to me with arguments about the previous Government's position on constitutional reform.
	It is repeatedly said that Labour seats and Conservative seats are different, and that that causes a distortion of the vote. To a certain extent, the noble Baroness might be right about that. There have been times in our past when the party that got the popular vote did not form the Government. That was the case in 1951, when the Labour Government got the greatest proportion of the popular vote. It was also true in 1974, when Ted Heath's Government got the popular vote. However, I say to her-this is outside any party political view-that I do not think that either our system or the people would long tolerate what was hoving into view in how our elections were working out. If a party won by, say, a clear 5 per cent of the popular vote, but another party could have the most seats in Parliament, it was clear that that distortion had to be addressed. I hope that those in all parts of the House would recognise that.
	There will be changes over the next 20 years, but I do not think it is very sensible to try to future-proof legislation. My experience is that we should not put trust in psephologists with regard to the impact of changes. I think that psephologists are like economists; they are trained to predict the past. My feeling is that very few of us would put money on a view of what the impact of the reforms will be at the next election. The noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, may well be right that the view of the electorate will sweep aside any advantage that the changes have, if indeed changes occur.
	I was slightly surprised that Lord Bach quoted what Lord Callaghan said in 1969. As the House will be aware, I see it as part of my role to defend the memory of Lord Callaghan, who was a very distinguished man. In 1969, however, he delayed the Boundary Commission report of that year until after the 1970 election, in what many thought was a crude political manoeuvre-and much good it did us, because we lost the 1970 election.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Is it not right that part of the manoeuvring involved a Bill that attempted to suspend the effect of the boundary changes, which was blocked in this House?

Lord McNally: It may well have been, but the fact is that Lord Callaghan acted as he did at the time, probably-I am not quite sure-with the full approval of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. The point that I am making is that a remark made by Lord Callaghan in the House at that time, when he was trying to intervene in respect of a boundary review, is not the most apt to pluck out now.

Lord Bach: Does the noble Lord agree that what Lord Callaghan said was true, and that constituencies are not merely areas bounded by a line on a map but are living communities with a unity, history and personality of their own? It does not really matter when he said it; is it true? Does the noble Lord agree with it?

Lord McNally: To a certain extent, but even the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, having made the same sort of point, then explained that Clackmannan was the only part of his constituency that survived integral during a whole parliamentary career. The noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, saw boundary changes. My God, there are enough of them in the building. Everybody has seen boundary changes.

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: The changes in the boundaries in my constituency, as in others, were always subject to a clear set of guidelines. The Boundary Commission often followed them. Quite often, however, as a result of public hearings, the changes that were made resulted in something which was broadly accepted by my electors and by other people in the surrounding constituencies. None of those points is likely to be made given the character of the legislation we are considering.

Lord McNally: I disagree.
	On the question of when Parliament last made such changes, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, rather triumphantly-it happens to us all, Josie, so never mind-

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I am listening.

Lord McNally: I know; that is why I looked over. If 1832 was the last time, I am pleased to know that there is that precedent. In this House, a 180 year-old precedent is fairly recent.
	We heard an extraordinary speech by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in which he quoted half a dozen numbers and, Perry Mason-like, tried to finger me to come up with an explanation. This is part of the circular nature of this debate. It seems years ago-it might have been only a few weeks ago-when I suggested that, in terms of the size of the electorate, setting an average constituency size of 76,000 produces a figure not unadjacent to 600.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I am quite happy to recast my argument not in terms of prime numbers and numbers of seats, but to come back to the question of why that number of electors should be chosen. What is the rationale? Why that figure, as opposed to 75,000, 72,000, 80,000, 85,000 or 90,000? That leads to a subject which I am sure we will come on to: the degree of tolerance around that figure.

Lord McNally: We may well come on to it, but 76,000 and 600 are sensible numbers which achieve the objective of this Bill: of fairer votes in fairer drawn constituencies. I forgot who it was who was suggesting the usual thing, because we have had this debate so many times over the last few weeks. There is no smoking gun. I have said before: I defy the psephologists to actually prove it. For somebody with the experience of elections that she has, she knows how positively daft it is to suggest that 600 is part of some figure that has come out of number-crunching by those in Central Office. Even now, with all the resources, why don't they crunch their own numbers and try and prove that 600 seats on an average of 76,000 is going to bring this massive advantage to the Conservative party or anybody else? We really do not know. It is simply a way of setting this central objective of fairer votes in fairer drawn constituencies and that is what niggles the Oppostion.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The Minister is answering a question which his noble friend the Leader of the House was unable to answer, by talking about the numbers. I am now puzzled. His right honourable friend Mr Clegg talked about going towards the future with the greatest reform Act since 1832. We now appear, given his reply tonight, to be going back to 1832, with Parliament and the Government setting the figure. Surely this cannot be what the Liberals mean by localism. This is centralism by the standards of anybody.

Lord McNally: I hope people will read these interventions and make their own assessment of them. I do not read into this as the noble Baroness is doing. There is a modest saving of public expenditure as noble Baroness, Lady Nye acknowledged. However it is not the driving force of the Bill.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I apologise to the noble Lord and to the House if I seem to be labouring this point, but I do not understand what the magic significance is. Is he now telling us that the driver which produces 600 constituencies is not the magic figure 600, but it is 76,000? If it is 76,000, why 76,000? Why not 75,000, which has a certain magic, or 80,000? What is the most important factor? Is it the number of constituencies or the number of electors, and why were those numbers chosen?

Lord McNally: They were chosen because they are sensible for achieving the objectives of the Bill. There is such a thing in theology as invincible ignorance. I think the real objection of the Opposition is that those two numbers will achieve what we want, which is fairer votes in fairer drawn constituencies. That is the heart of the matter. That is what they do not like, and every time I tell them, they get madder and madder, but we are going to do it.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We now have a new explanation that has not been before the House so far. Like me, the noble Lord knows Lancashire well. Can he tell me how 76,000 benefits the sense of community in Lancashire? This 76,000 has suddenly appeared. What exactly does it do to Blackpool, Burnley and all the other areas that he and I know well? What does it do in south Wales? What does it do in the north-east? Is it based on the average size of a community or the average size of the greed of the coalition?

Lord McNally: Wow, what a finish! It gives equal value to each vote-an objective that I would have thought the Opposition would be in favour of. We can carry on all night on this, or all morning, but-

Baroness Nye: The Minister was answering a point that I made in my speech. I should like him to help me a little more. What I said was that once the Liberal Democrats' figure was not there, you had the figure of 585, which the Conservative Party had gone to the election with. They must have done a calculation about how equal they wanted their votes to be. I can't do the maths-it is too late for me to do that, if I ever could. The Minister has not answered my question. Why did they not stick to 585? We would all understand it if they had stuck to 585.

Lord McNally: I do not know. I really do not know. You could then ask why we did not choose 584. We have put a number in the Bill to fulfil the objectives of the Bill. What we have coming next, which I think is an abuse of the procedures of the House, is an amendment going on about a figure of 640, and then there is another one on 650. Then you want to be treated seriously in terms of not abusing the processes of this House.
	It is great to see the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, in good form, it really is. It takes me back to our student debating days. Really, I can only go so far. I have explained and explained, and not for the first time at this Dispatch Box. Out of deference, I give way to the noble Lord.

Lord Kinnock: We used to be against deference as well, didn't we? On a very serious point, does the Minister recall that the original rationale for the figure of 585 was offered by the Leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, in the middle of the expenses scandal when, in order to demonstrate how radically different a Conservative Government would be, he said that there was a commitment to reduce the numbers in the House of Commons by 10 per cent, taking it down to 585, in order to save public money? That was the original rationale. So why now, at this point in the debate on changing the numbers in the House of Commons, are we not still presented with that figure, which at least had the legitimacy of being in one party's manifesto? And why, if it is not 585, is it 600? May I underline, by repetition, the question that he has yet to answer? Why 600? If his calculation is based on rough equal numbers per constituency, why again has that number been chosen? There is no substantive rationale behind it.

Lord McNally: I will try again. The two numbers are sensible numbers to achieve the objectives of the Bill. I was not going to delay the House. We have estimated that reducing the size of the other place will save £12.2 million annually, made up of reduced salary costs of £4.1 million and £8.1 million in reduced expenditure on MPs' expenses. At a time when the whole public sector is being asked to do more with less, this is a relatively modest saving, but one worth making.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: The value of the saving that the noble Lord is talking about is roughly equivalent to the bonus of one or two members of Goldman Sachs, or perhaps roughly equivalent to the value of a property in certain parts of Kensington. Basically, my point is that having heard the noble Lord's explanation in respect of 600 or why one should have various figures, we remain somewhat confused, but at a higher level of confusion.
	The noble Lord deserves the congratulations of the House, because he has tried to answer the various points that have been made in the debate. He has gone through them one after another. The way he has treated the House is in marked contrast to the way in which the Leader of the House has treated us. After the previous, rather long, debate, he tried to speak for two or three minutes. That was arrogant and is in marked contrast to what the noble Lord has done in this debate.

Lord McNally: I have to confess that I go off at 3 o'clock. The reason I was talking is that I had not noticed that my noble friend from the morning shift had come on, otherwise I might have wrapped up long ago.
	I have tried and I can only go back to respond to the noble Lords, Lord Kinnock and Lord Liddle. The Government's rationale for this is fairer votes in more fairly drawn constituencies-nothing more, nothing less. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill, at the appropriate time we will take our conduct and our approach to this matter to the country and we will let them make a judgment.

Baroness McDonagh: I thank the Minister for responding to the points raised in the debate and I thank everyone for their contribution. I intend to be very brief. I believe that the purpose of an amendment at this stage of the process is to probe the thinking of the Government and to raise points that the Government will consider before coming back on Third Reading. I always live in hope and I hope that they will do that.
	I want to explain the points that I raised about a rising 70 million electorate over the next 20 years and the potential for the voting age to fall to 16. They do not happen when you get to the end of 20 years. The problem with the electorate is that it rises every year towards every general election. We will not get to 70 million; it will happen at each and every election. It therefore makes much more sense to have a constituency based on numbers of voters as opposed to an overall cap, when you know that that is going to happen. It seems to me more sensible to have a 72,000-rising constituency based on the May 2010 figures or 78,000 on the basis of all eligible voters.
	The point I was making about psephologists is not whether I believe they are right in saying that the figure of 600 gives the Conservatives the most constituencies; the point is that that is what the Conservative Party believes. That is how we have ended up with this figure. I am really saddened at this point that the Government cannot explain why the figure of 600 is still in the Bill. That is why these probing amendments have been tabled, so that we can understand.
	As I said at the very beginning, I hope that, over time, the Government will consider the points that I raised in moving this amendment and that we will see movement at Third Reading. Therefore, I will not be pressing this amendment to a vote.
	Amendment 61 withdrawn.
	Motion
	 Moved by Lord Falconer of Thoroton
	That the House do now resume.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I beg to move that the House do now resume. It was three hours and fifty minutes ago that I made the last application for the House to resume. Taking the starting point as the application to move into Committee, the House has now been talking about this Bill for twelve hours, less an hour, for the UQ. The House is now, according to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, sitting in shifts. I understand that he is going off at three. There will be substantial proportions of the House that will not hear half of these amendments.
	We are debating these amendments in respect of a part of the Bill where there is no stated urgency to any part. We are doing it at the dead of night. It is sixteen minutes past three. I do not believe that this is an appropriate way for us to conduct business. This is another opportunity for those on the other Benches to consider whether or not this is the right way to seek proper scrutiny of the Bill. I said on the last occasion that I moved that the House resume that our unique feature-the thing that makes us a successful House-is that we scrutinise Bills well. It is inappropriate and wrong for us to be doing a really important constitutional Bill that has no degree of urgency-because there is no external urgency like there was in relation to, for example, the national security or Northern Rock legislation-in the middle of the night.

Lord Grocott: Would my noble and learned friend comment again briefly? There was an accusation in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about whether or not the procedures of the House were being obeyed in respect of a decoupling of amendments. It is worth reminding the House-not that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, should need reminding because his party quite frequently decoupled groups of amendments in the many years that he was in Opposition-that that followed a clear breach of the conventions of the House in calling for a closure on the previous group of amendments. In fact our Standing Orders make clear that that was a most exceptional set of circumstances. It would not have been so bad if the proposal had come from the Opposition Back Benches-which it did-and the Front Bench had chosen not to follow it but, quite deliberately, the Front Bench encouraged the Motion and went through the Lobbies in order to ensure that it was carried.
	I will list the breaches to the conventions of this House in some detail. For now I will be brief. The clearest possible breach of the conventions of this House is, as my noble and learned friend has said, when there is absolutely no time imperative whatsoever for this and for the Government to have determined that we should be sitting at this time and, even more significantly, that we should be considering the Bill tomorrow and on Thursday. I have not kept count of the breaches in convention.

Lord McNally: This House has made these decisions. It is not the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who decides what has been breached or not. This House came to a proper democratic decision. I know that they do not like that. I suggest that he puts forward his Motion and we will try again.

Lord Grocott: When I was Chief Whip, there was never an occasion when there was no time imperative when we tried to drive legislation through. When I was Government Whip, there was never a single occasion when debate on a group of amendments was blocked by means of-
	The Minister says it was because we could not get agreement.

Lord McNally: No, because you got agreement.

Lord Grocott: The noble Lord should make the intervention if he wants to do this, because, believe me-

Lord McNally: Everyone sitting there knows that every Government has negotiations between the usual channels. I know how much co-operation we have had. You would not have got a single Bill through under your stewardship if this behaviour had been normal, and that is the threat to this House. That is the threat to the credibility of this House. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, would not have got any business through either without-

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I was a government Whip during the whole of the Labour Government, and on every single occasion, we were advised that we had to consult the Opposition about days when they were available to deal with legislation. This was the case during the times of the noble Lords, Lord Carter, Lord Grocott and Lord Bassam. That is my first point. My second point is that the degrouping of amendments that occurred during the Countryside and Rights of Way Act-the noble Lord, Lord Greaves will bear me out on this-dealt with the issues one by one. The one thing that strikes me tonight is that in all my time as a government Whip when we were in government, I never heard a Minister on our Front Bench dealing with a constitutional Bill of this magnitude referring to "shift work".

Lord McNally: You never heard a government Minister from your side when you were trying to get through 13 different constitutional changes in one Bill coming up with some of the arguments we have heard over the last couple of days.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Lords reform-I think the noble Lord, Lord McNally's memory is failing.

Lord Glentoran: I very well remember the access to the countryside Bill, because I was sitting where the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is now, doing the Front Bench job for the Opposition. I did not know enough about the House in those days to know how it worked, but we sat until we had breakfast at 6.30 in shifts; we then went on until 11.00 before we rose. I had some of the most hostile opponents-they were the Government-but I was facing the government party, and I do not get frightened or nervous easily, but when I stood up there and got the baying and the shouting and the real unpleasantness from the Government, frankly tonight is the first time I felt I was in the House of Commons.

Lord Greaves: I am not quite sure why the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, calls me in evidence. The Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, which was over ten years ago, was the last time before tonight that the House of Lords sat overnight on ordinary legislation. We have had overnight events on ping pong-the overnight sittings on the Terrorism Bill, or whatever it was, was on ping pong-but the last time there was an ordinary overnight sitting, if there is such a thing, was on the CROW Bill. That was the first legislation that I had really been involved in; I was very new here. I do not recognise the exact description given about it either by the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, or by my noble friend.
	However, what was absolutely clear during the passage of that Bill was that there was a significant group of Members of this House who were intent on filibustering. In my belief, they were Conservative Back Benchers-the Front Bench was not involved at all-connected with landowning interests. They were assisted by certain Cross-Bench Members with similar interests, which are legitimate interests, but they were determined to try to delay the Bill as much as possible, because they were against it. As I have said to some of my colleagues, the last time I experienced animosity of the sort there is in the House about the Bill which we are discussing was on that previous Bill, but it was coming from a different part of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, may not agree, but that is my recollection of the history.
	It is time that everyone in the House calmed down a bit. In particular, I inform noble Lords who think it reasonable to spend 12 hours today-or yesterday, or whichever day we happen to be in-on three amendments that I believe that that is an abuse of the procedures of this House. I believe passionately that the most important role of this House is to scrutinise legislation properly and thoroughly. If that takes time, it takes time. People ask me about the actions of my colleagues and me during consideration of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill. Indeed, we had 17 sessions considering that Bill, but it was very important and complicated, and we did it properly. At no stage, however, except perhaps when the very first group of amendments was considered on the first day, did we ever spend more than an hour on a group. That was one of the targets that we set ourselves. We decided that we would limit ourselves to an hour's debate as far as possible, as an absolute maximum on a single group of amendments. On many we spent far less time. I believe that taking four hours over one group of amendments, and then the same time over another group where all the same arguments are regurgitated, is an abuse of the House. Those noble Lords who are involved should not be surprised when they meet a great deal of anger and resistance. Some noble Lords have asked why the Liberal Democrats are not listening to what they are saying. The answer is the way in which those noble Lords are behaving.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I do not think that mutual recrimination is getting the Committee very far. The noble and learned Lord has proposed his Motion and I would like him to confirm that he would like the House to consider it.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that masterful intervention. Things got rather muddled because the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, intervened on me, then the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, intervened on the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. The previous time when the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I had a discussion about this Bill, which was about three and a half hours ago, I said that we did not think in the same way, and I apologised at the time. Now I am not so sure. In certain things-not everything-we have a similar outlook. With the greatest of respect to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, the thing on which I think we most agree is the importance of this House retaining its function as a scrutinising House. With respect and affection to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, it is for the House an ugly picture of the noble Lord wagging his finger at us and saying that we must do what he says. It is the same noble Lord, Lord McNally, who said of the conduct of the Labour Front-Bench spokesman in the other place that they were simply time-wasting in the guillotine debates there. That worried me, because it tended to indicate a contemptuous view of scrutiny of this Bill.
	I am afraid that I remain of the view that we should have stopped many hours ago, so I beg to move that this House do now resume.

Division on the Motion to resume
	Contents 77; Not-Contents 126.
	Motion disagreed.

Amendment 62
	 Moved by Lord Snape
	62: Clause 11, page 9, line 18, leave out "600" and insert "640"

Lord Snape: My Lords, I am now faced with a rather impossible task. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is about to go and have a lie down-fortunately, I think, given the state of his temper-has already denounced me for time wasting before I have got to my feet. Things are a little difficult. I hope before he goes I will not have him banging on the Dispatch Box, so I will try to introduce some new arguments into this case. My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey will be relieved to know that this is very much a probing amendment and I tabled it in the hope that we could have a debate about the duties and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament and, as my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport amply demonstrated in the debate on the last amendment, how the role of a Member of Parliament has changed enormously over the years. I hope to be able to do so without provoking a phone call from Trimble junior about any waffling from this side of the House. I never went to university myself but to find students these days at 3.42 in the morning watching the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill indicates to me that a university education is not all that it is cracked up to be. Certainly I would find something better to do if I were in their position.
	In 1974 I was elected to the other place for the then new constituency of West Bromwich East-a constituency created by the Boundary Commission, bearing in mind the social conditions in West Bromwich at that time because that is what Boundary Commissions did and do, which is why there has been so much concern on this side of your Lordships' House about the future and particularly about the lack of local inquiries when new boundaries are produced, which is inherent in this Bill.
	During my early years as a Member of the other place-coincidentally, although I see the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has left the Front Bench now-I shared the use of a secretary with a man called Andrew Bennett who represented Stockport North. In those days, it was sufficient for us to employ a part-time secretary who would come in on two evenings a week to jointly do our constituency work. When I left the other place in 2001, I employed two full-time staff and one part-timer. That was before the onset of the internet. I did not actually know how to plug a computer in when I was a Member of the House of Commons-I had somebody to do all that sort of thing for me. I found some difficulty in being transported to your Lordships' House as I was expected to do all that sort of thing myself. I managed to achieve that much and I can cope just about with the internet but my successor in the other place can get 5,000 e-mails a week. Many of the people, if they e-mail him and do not get an instant response-within, say, 24 hours-will denounce him in the local paper for failing to take any notice of his constituents. It is a vastly different world from that I experienced 37 years ago when I was first elected. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is replying to this debate, will do so with regard to the seriousness with which I am putting these points. One of the reasons that I have tabled this amendment is that the position, duties and workload of a Member of Parliament are much greater now than in the days just referred to. Of course it could be argued-it probably will be argued from the government Front Bench-that secretarial facilities in the other place are much better than they were all those years ago, and if necessary those secretarial facilities could be increased to meet that burgeoning workload.
	My noble friend Lord Howarth mentioned the number of immigration cases. It will not come as any surprise to him if I say, as someone who represented West Bromwich, that they provided a considerable proportion of my workload as a constituency Member of Parliament. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that that situation has changed since I left the other place. Again, noble Lords will appreciate that immigration matters in particular are extraordinarily time consuming. It is not a question of a simple housing repair; there are plenty of those cases as well of course. Some of my colleagues in the other place, much braver than I, said "Well, if someone comes to you with a housing case why don't you refer them to your local councillors?". I had a majority of 288 at one stage, so I was not about to alienate any more people than was absolutely necessary. I dealt with them myself at that time. Immigration cases in particular were, and are, extraordinarily complicated, and it might easily be argued that we could increase secretarial allowances for Members of Parliament in order for them to meet that ever burgeoning workload.
	The newspapers are reporting only this week on the salaries of Members of Parliament. It is easier perhaps for us at this end of the building to defend a proper salary for a Member of Parliament. Setting up a body to take the question of Members' salaries out of the Chamber of the other place and place it in the hands of an independent body would, it was said at the time by Harriet Harman and by other people, make the award of an increase for Members of Parliament much easier to accept. "Oh, yes", I said at the time, "I will believe that when I see it".
	I go back to Harold Wilson's days. He gave me my first job as a junior Whip. He said. "At least you get a pay rise". I think it was about £3,000 a year that we earned back in the 1970s. I had no doubts that, when this independent body was set up, the first time it awarded Members of Parliament a pay rise the Prime Minister of the day, regardless of his political view, would say, "It's the wrong time". Well, I have been around this building for nearly 40 years. I have never known the right time for Members of Parliament to get a pay rise. Certainly it will be argued-I expect it to be argued by the government Front Bench-that, given the current circumstances, it is an inappropriate time to award the £1,000 a year that this independent body has recommended. Does anyone seriously think on either side of the Chamber that it will be possible to give Members of Parliament adequate facilities to do the extra constituency workload that they have at present? Does anyone think that the Daily Mailwould not say, "These people are costing us X thousands of pounds a year"? Being a Member of Parliament in the other place is the only job I have ever known where your secretary's salary and her typewriter or computer is added to your salary as far as the newspapers are concerned. That is never going to change. I say in all seriousness to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is going to reply to this debate, that I hope that the Government will look at the numbers of Members of Parliament and they will move away from this belief that 600 is the optimum figure. We have never had an explanation, after all this time and after all this debate on the Bill, how that figure has been arrived at. I hope that the Minister will agree that to reduce the numbers of Members of the other place, despite the problems and workload in a modern society, is nonsense.
	I do not want to repeat anything that was said previously on the debate as to whether this should be 600, 640 or 650. I just ask the Minister, when he responds, to bear in mind that it is not popular to defend Members of the other place, but regardless of political party the vast majority of them are, in my experience, hard working. To reduce their numbers at present, given the social problems facing this country, given the economic situation facing this country, and given the increased workload for all of them, regardless of what part of the country they represent, would be absolute folly.
	I hope that the Minister will reply in the same spirit with which I have moved this amendment and accept that there are sincere concerns-I am sure on both sides of your Lordships' House, but certainly on this side of the House-about the future. We believe that the present number-650-is about right and we ought to keep it at that. I beg to move.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend's comments, although I would not be happy even with a reduction to 640, as the amendment proposes. I shall speak briefly from personal experience. The only justification that I can think of-I really have been wrestling with this-for the Government deciding to reduce the number of MPs is that they must somehow or other think that it does not make any difference to the way in which MPs can serve their constituents.
	It was my experience as the MP for The Wrekin that when the electorate went up to 90,892 at the 1992 election, it was like the cavalry coming over the hill when the Boundary Commission said that the constituency had to be reduced in size. It went down quite dramatically. I acknowledge that it ended up smaller than you would expect a constituency to be, but it includes a very rapidly expanding town. The electorate went down from 90,892 to 56,558. I have to say to the House that although, like the vast majority of MPs, I was very hard working and did my very best to represent the people who had sent me to Westminster, the level of service and the quality of job that you can do when you have 56,000 or 60,000 people to represent is dramatically better than the service that you can deliver when you represent 90,000 people.
	At the simplest level, as far as I was concerned, it meant that instead of largely reacting to constituency problems, complaints and grievances-because that filled your time-and going to factories and schools, for example, when they invited you along, I was able in a reasonably coherent way to set out a programme of action within the much smaller electorate and geographical size of the constituency to do these things on a much more systematic basis.
	I find it impossible to accept the argument that you should increase the size of constituencies. I would describe this section of the Bill not as the reduction in the number of MPs, but as the increase in the size of constituencies. Doing that weakens the link between the MP and his or her constituents. I find that pretty astonishing, particularly when it comes from members of parties that were very concerned about the breakdown of trust in Parliament-we were all concerned about that-up until the last general election, when it was said that MPs and Parliament generally must reconnect with the people. Now they are bringing forward a Bill that makes that unarguably more difficult.
	I suggest to the Government that they would save themselves an awful lot of difficulty-I know they are not looking for suggestions-if they looked again at the proposal to reduce the number of MPs and concentrated instead on the mantra, which we have heard so frequently, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about fair votes in fair constituencies. I cannot remember it, but it is some mantra of that sort. They should concentrate rather more on equalising the size of constituencies, if that is their objective, and rather less on simultaneously trying to reduce the number of MPs and increasing the size of constituencies.
	I was going to say, "If I was a betting man", but I am a betting man. I would bet that if, in the privacy of their own party relationships, the Conservative leadership and the Liberal Democrat leadership went to their own Members of Parliament-who now know that they will be in conflict with neighbours as the constituencies are redrawn, will for the most part have bigger constituencies to represent and will have to face this upheaval every five years-they would not still be very keen to go ahead with the Bill in its present form.
	I would imagine that if the Whips do what Whips have traditionally done, at their best, which is consult their Members, they would find widespread misgivings about what is being done. When you get over the flush of success when you are first returned and at subsequent returns-we know there has been a terrific turnover in membership of the other House-they will begin to realise that very substantial changes are coming their way, probably to their disadvantage, which their own Government are whipping through.
	I have no problem whatever with this House spending time on a Bill that primarily concerns the House of Commons, because very quickly, large numbers of their Members will object not only to the constituency part of the Bill, but to the change in the electoral system. So we have the astonishing situation that on most bits of the Bill, I have no doubt that there is a majority in the House of Commons against. I am certain that that is the case with respect to changes in the electoral system and I suspect that by now, in private, it would also be the view of many Members of the House of Commons in respect of the constituency boundaries part of the Bill.
	That is why the function of this House is so important. It is to do the job that the Commons could not do because of the guillotine, but I also believe it to be true, paradoxically, that those of us who are concerned about this Bill are more representative of opinion across the House of Commons than can in any way be described by the votes that took place.
	Finally, I have seen Minister after Minister defending the Bill and finding it impossible to explain why they have picked 600 and why they have that size of electorate for the constituencies. They would not be in this difficulty if they had thought again about the wisdom or otherwise of simultaneously changing the basis on which constituency boundaries are drawn-we could have a serious argument about making them more equal-and taking a decision on reducing the size of the House of Commons. They would not be in the business of having to explain the optimum size of a constituency; they would simply be able to say that this was what the independent Boundary Commission had decided in the past. It may not sound like it, but if they could bring themselves to look again at the position they have adopted on some of these things, they would make life a great deal easier for themselves. I have to say that I would certainly oppose any reduction in the number of Members of Parliament.

Lord Winston: I do not in any way wish to be political and I certainly do not want to be accused of filibuster, which is not my intention at all. I tried to raise this point earlier, but it has not been answered by anybody on either side of the House. When we employ people in most parts of the public sector, we make certain that that employment is tailored to the job that is required, taking account of the number of people who will be required to fill posts to do the work.
	It seems to me that we have not yet in this debate fully explained exactly what we are requiring of our Members of the House of Commons. When I, for example, do an experiment in my laboratory, I make very serious mathematical calculations to try to predict what I will need mathematically in order to get a satisfactory experiment or a satisfactory result or to get something that is valuable. I use complex statistics. It seems to me-perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, might be able to answer this, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Snape, might come back to it when he returns to his amendment in due course-that we are not doing anything other than pulling out of the air numbers which do not have any rationality.
	This is a really important issue for the House. For example-maybe this has come up before, but I have not heard it-it seems to me pretty obvious that, given the nature of an inner-city constituency with the deprivation that is likely to be present, a sitting Member is going to have a much harder task in servicing those constituents than someone in a rural area with perhaps the same number of constituents. It happens, of course, that most inner-city areas would be more likely to be represented by a Labour MP, but that is not my point at all. My point is that it does not make sense to have a blanket rule across constituencies; the amount of work in constituencies will naturally vary considerably. I hope that while we are teasing out this issue of whether it is 650 or 640, we might actually address this, and that future speakers in this debate will do just that.

Baroness Smith of Basildon: My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate, and I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would address some of the questions that I had from the previous debate. I hope he will be able to come back. It seems to me, after listening to the debate on this issue-and we also had it on Second Reading-that there are two things missing, both in the Government's position and in the amendments that we debated earlier. The first is a justification for the number that has been given, be it 600, 630 or 640, and the other is a justification for the Government setting the number. I find myself in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, who spoke earlier in that I am reluctant to accept from my noble friends as well as from the Government why the Government should be the body that sets the number of Members of Parliament. If the Minister is able to address that in his response, I would be extremely grateful.
	I know that the Government are exasperated with this debate on the number of Members of Parliament, but it would be very easy for them to end the debate and clear it up. It seems to me that, today and at Second Reading, the response has been inadequate. At Second Reading, the Leader of the House said that 600 was the figure because it was a "nice round number". Tonight we have heard the noble Lord, Lord McNally, explain that it is a "common sense figure". When we are looking at the quality and level of representation for the elected House, I do not think it is adequate to talk about a nice round number or a number that makes sense. There has to be a proper analysis and rationale behind that. Some of the comments that have been made fail to understand why there is so much concern about plucking a number out of thin air. I would like to hear from my noble friend Lord Snape whether there is a rationale behind 640, or has it been proposed simply because it is not 600?
	The Merits Committee also raised this particular issue with a lot of justification, and I think it would do the House no harm to take note of what it said:
	"We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on any basis of any considered amendment of the role and functions of MPs".
	That seems quite an indictment of the Government's position and further emphasises how poor an answer it is simply to say "a nice round number".
	We have to look at the role and functions of Members of Parliament-what the public expect of them and what your Lordships' House expects of them, and the relationship between the two Houses. Lines drawn on a map in order to create a constituency can significantly impact on a Member of Parliament's workload. It is not just about numbers: it affects the lives of constituents. Prior to my election to the other place in 1997, the constituency boundaries in my constituency were redrawn. For the 2010 election, the constituency boundaries were redrawn again, which may explain why I am in your Lordships' House and not in the other place.
	Those lines had a real impact, particularly in 1997, because the seat that was known as Basildon then lost part of Basildon and took in part of Thurrock. Those members of the public who lived in Thurrock took great exception to being in a constituency where even the name did not recognise their existence. In terms of workload, as the Member of Parliament-unlike the previous Member of Parliament for that constituency-I did not go and see one police force or one local authority. To represent my constituents on issues that concerned them in meetings, I had to visit three local authorities, two police forces and two health authorities. Everything was doubled or tripled. The boundary lines are therefore very important, not only to the workload of constituency MPs but to how members of the public perceive their MP's loyalty and commitment to that constituency.
	The noble Lord, Lord Winston, probably made this point better than I will, but the workload of a Member of Parliament varies enormously. It can depend on the type of constituency, which depends on levels of deprivation and, in some cases, the level of articulacy of members of that constituency. I recall speaking with a Conservative MP from a leafy suburb who stopped me when I was collecting my post in the Members' post room. My postbag was significantly heavier than his. He said, "Do you have much post?". I simply picked up the sack that I was carrying. He said, "I only get a couple of letters a day that I need to answer". He then asked me, "Do you hold surgeries in your constituency?". I said, "Of course I do". He said, "Does anybody attend? I sit in the village hall and nobody is there". Yet in my constituency, which geographically was considerably smaller than his, the workload was significantly greater. I mention that not to show how some MPs are hard-working and more precious than others, but because the quality of representation to a constituent is vitally important.
	Constituency boundaries are also important in terms of the work of the House of Commons and scrutinising the Executive. In my time as a Member of Parliament-I was a Back-Bencher, a government Whip, PPS to the Prime Minister and a government Minister-I found my role as a constituency MP informed by my work as a Minister. Issues brought to the attention of Members of Parliament by constituents are important in looking at policy and looking at the impact of government policies. That link is vital. If constituencies are going to be made bigger at a time when MPs have fewer resources and less money-less money for staff, offices and communications with constituents, since the last election-and we increase the size of constituencies after we have reduced the resources, it becomes harder for those MPs to fulfil their duties to their constituents in the way that they want. They will not let that work slip. The relationship between MPs and their constituents is a precious one and is valued enormously. But that then has an impact on the work that they do in the other place in terms of scrutinising legislation and serving on Select Committees. I can count a number of cases where Members of Parliament said to me, "I will not be in for Questions today or the Statement because I have to finish my case work. I have calls to make to my constituents". That has a huge impact on the operation of the other place. We should never think that one part of a Member of Parliament's work is more important than any other. It is of equal value to represent constituents in the other place.
	There is also the impact on the Executive if there are fewer MPs. Professor Anthony King raised the issue in an article in the Observer last year. His concern was that if there were fewer MPs, Ministers would be selected from a smaller gene pool. However, there is another significant point that I do not think has been raised so far. If the number of MPs is reduced, the Executive will be proportionately larger and will have greater power than at present. That is not satisfactory. In these amendments and government proposals, if we are talking about reducing the number of MPs from the current level, we should also be talking about reducing the size of the Executive.
	For a number of reasons, the Government's proposals have huge implications and are flawed. I would like to hear from my noble friend Lord Snape why any reduction in the number of MPs is appropriate. How can we justify Parliament setting the number of Members of Parliament? Where did the figure of 640 come from? What is the rationale behind it?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I would like to try to answer the question asked by my noble friend Lord Winston, because it is a legitimate one. Although he did not put it this crudely, he seemed to say that, in theory and on paper, it is a good idea to write down the job description. But that cannot always be done. The one thing about the membership of the other place is that it is unique. Nobody else in the country is doing the things that they do. They are non-executive-they have no authority and cannot issue any orders except to their personal staff to answer questions. They are ombudsmen, champions, ambassadors, marriage counsellors and social workers. After my first 10 years I stopped saying that I had dealt with everything that you could think of, because the next week something completely different, which could never have been contemplated, came into my surgery or across my desk.
	I went through two boundary changes along with my late friend Denis Howell, who was also a Member of this place. We had discussions about the size of the constituencies and the workload. Since then, I have taken more of an interest in matters outside the narrow urban areas, but Denis explained to me why the workload in the inner-cities was different. My seat was largely outer-city but also had a bit of inner-city. The workload is great in terms of the social side of things, such as the deprivation and the individual casework of people with individual problems, but you then have to balance that against the sparsity of population in other areas as well as what someone called the "intelligentsia", although that is not the word that I would use. About once a month somebody would come to see me to talk about policy. It was a shock when someone would do so. I would think, "What is the problem? This is about policy?". In other areas of the country, however, Members of Parliament are driven round the bend with questions about policy from their electorate. They have the time, the wherewithal, the knowledge, the expertise and the curiosity to put their Member of Parliament on the rack.
	It is very difficult to write these things down and say that one is more important than another. I missed part of the debate but made a short intervention before the attempt to close the previous debate at about 7:30 am. However, I mentioned that my constituency numbers increased from 52,000 to 76,000 in the 1983 boundary changes. I had not realised that 76,000 was so important until I heard the noble Lord, Lord McNally, winding up the last debate. That is it: pick 76,000. That is the way to do it. My constituency, at the best measure, was 16 square miles. Radnor was about 1,200 square miles at the time. I visited other constituencies. I was once in Rossendale and Darwin for some reason. I was the opposition spokesman and was with the Member of Parliament. It may have been Janet Anderson, I cannot remember, but we were driving down a road in a valley with fields adjoining. She said, "We still have another 20 miles to go". I said, "I could put my whole constituency in this area that we are looking at now". The time element of getting around and being available when you have sparsity of population is a factor that we underestimate at our peril.
	I did not want to intervene earlier on the noble Lord, Lord Liddell, or anybody else, because I had not been in the debate. However, the issue about Cumbria is not an unimportant one. He did not mention it, so I will. The only way you could put five Members in Cumbria is to stick a mountain range in the middle of one of the constituencies. It is the only way you can do it, because on paper it has been looked at and dismissed. When we had the last boundary review in 1992-93, the one that came into force in 1997, at the boundary inquiry in Birmingham we were faced with a situation where Yardley, a Birmingham constituency, if we did it wrong, would be 52,000. We knew that it had been the smallest constituency on mainland England. You could not justify the smallest constituency in the middle of the country because we were comparing it at that time with Copeland, I think it was, on the west coast of Cumbria. That was the next smallest, I think, with something in the range of 49,000 to 51,000 constituents, quite a bit smaller than the average. The reason was the sea and the mountains. If you want to take the view that, "No, everybody has got to be together", that means that you put a mountain range in the middle of a constituency. That is the reality. That is not a hypothetical example, but that is what will happen in the county of Cumbria. I do not think that anybody would think that that is a good idea.
	The only other point I want to make is the one previously made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I think, about the unsettling situation for Members of the other place. When boundaries have gone through two changes, in the normal course of events-three elections, a boundary change, three elections, a boundary change-there needs to be a degree of stability. You always knew that at the next election there would be a boundary change. There was an unsettling period, even though you were not fighting colleagues and Birmingham was not losing seats. People retired, and there was not really a massive conflict situation. However, those things occurred in the rest of the country. This is going to be a big conflict in the other place now because they have just had a boundary change. This is not a point about taking the normal flow. It is true that a lot of people have just come in, but the others are there as a result of a boundary change. Now they are going to face another boundary change at the next election. If the Government think they can hold Members' attention in the Lobby and on all the minutiae and the boring but necessary bits of legislation as we approach the next election, when people are off trying to find a constituency and challenging their colleagues-because that is the inevitable consequence of this-they've got another think coming. I think that will cause unsettling. That happens normally, and I have no problem about that. However, to have it happen with two elections running I think is going to cause major difficulties.
	My final point is one that I would have made earlier, but it does go with the flow of the Bill. We have had constant complaining. When I left here last night, I actually watched the Leader of the House on Sky Television. He gave a very intemperate interview using quite extravagant language about the proceedings in this House, which I think he will come to regret in due course. No journalist ever questions the Government when they start to compare the Bill in the House of Commons with the Bill in this House. When the Commons started on this Bill, it was 153 pages. The Government put into the Bill in the Commons 286 amendments, causing it to leave the Commons at 300 pages. First of all, the Commons were under guillotine-and we know that government amendments take precedence when the knife comes down. It is actually far less time that MPs have had to debate the Bill and their amendments because of the time that the Government took putting their amendments into their Bill to double the size while it was in the Commons. I cannot understand why journalists never raise this issue.
	The worst thing is that it is not possible to table Questions in this place to find out about amendments in the other place that were tabled but not debated, with no time spent on them, because there is no accountability on the Government to answer such a Question. One cannot table it because the Government cannot answer it. One can only ask about government amendments, which is how we know about the 286. They did not all come at once-there were more than 100 in Committee and more than 100 on Report. They were at it all the while. It is just as well that they cannot amend on Third Reading in the Commons, but they have come into this place to do this.
	The Government might have lost on one technical issue that I raised on the date, which does not alter or prevent 5 May-I am not seeking to prevent that; they can still do it-but the Government have now taken the level of amendments to well over 300 on their own Bill, and then they complain when we scrutinise what we are presented with. The fortunate thing in this House is that we do not have the guillotine-we do not have the knife-so we will debate our amendments as well as the government amendments. In the Commons, MPs were forced to vote on and debate government amendments and were banned and prohibited from debating many of their own amendments.
	In many of our debates ex-Members of the other place have shared their lifetime experiences. I fully accept that some of those experiences were from another world-I was one of the last to have a fax machine, let alone e-mail and computers. The fact that we can share those experiences is fine, but we need to make up for the fact that, in the other place, they did not have the opportunity to do so.

Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I rise relatively briefly, certainly by the standard of some of the proceedings that have taken place. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would agree that his 640 was an absolutely precise figure based on a detailed application of science, but I think that we can take it as quite a useful thing. It is interesting to consider quite a small reduction instead of the largish ones that have been under consideration-to 600 or, as in the Conservative manifesto, I believe, beyond that. The arguments are rather different from the arguments for a large reduction.
	I do not think, on the whole, that a small reduction is very desirable except in the circumstances that I shall come to in a minute. However, thinking about it does enable us to realise the virtues of an amendment that the House considered earlier and to which we will, I am sure, return on Report. Amendment 60, to which I am particularly wedded because it is in my name, proposes a Speaker's Conference to consider these things. I do not think that a Speaker's Conference would generally be very likely to think that 640 is the right answer. However, there is one circumstance that a Speaker's Conference might want to consider-I do not say what conclusion it would reach-and it is something that has not come up in this debates.
	A number of Members are present from my own country of Wales. In Wales there is to be a referendum in March about increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly. I am not an expert on the matter, and I do not know if such increases in powers would make it considerably more comparable with the Scottish Parliament, or rather more, or not make an enormous difference.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: It would be a substantial step in the direction of the Scottish Parliament, but almost certainly not enough to justify the same as happened in Scotland-a substantial reduction in seats- because the Scottish Parliament has a very wide range of primary legislative powers.

Lord Lipsey: I am most grateful to my noble friend; that is extremely helpful. If there were a Speaker's Conference, there would, first, be the question of the result. If the Welsh people turned down the increase of powers, there would be no reason from that to change the number of Welsh MPs. If they accepted the increase in powers, and the polls suggest that they will, there would be a case for looking at the number of Welsh seats.
	You would then want to say: should such a decrease in the number of seats be felt to be justified, should this decrease be comparable to the scale of the decrease that took place in Scotland or at the Welsh Assembly? It would still have fewer powers than the Scottish Parliament. Should that be rather less, or does it really not justify changing the number of Welsh seats at all? I do not know. There are circumstances in which a small change in the number of seats could be justified. Otherwise there would be rather a lot of disruption for not a lot of gain. That is a circumstance which would best be considered by a Speaker's Conference.

Lord McAvoy: My Lords, I would like to bring to the House some experience of having had to go through a purely numerical exercise in redrawing a constituency, because the reduction of 13 in the number of Westminster seats for Scotland took place against a background of the Scottish Parliament. I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will correct me on the timing of these things, as he was the first Deputy First Minister in Scotland. The original section of the Scotland Act said that if the Westminster seats were reduced, the number of Scottish Parliament seats would be reduced as well. However, come the time-I think that the noble and learned Lord was still Deputy First Minister-such a row was kicked up that the proposal for a reduction in Scottish seats was abandoned, but the reduction in the Westminster seats still went ahead. Then the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, fought for the retention of the status quo on seats-God forbid that they reduced the Scottish Parliament seats. Along with some in the Labour Party, it has to be said, the then Deputy First Minister was in the forefront on behalf of the Liberals fighting for the retention of every single Scottish Parliament seat, and the Westminster seats were reduced.
	Now we have the situation where the same noble and learned Lord is fighting to reduce the seats. It does not affect him or his party as much as it affects the Labour Party. There is an element of, "Don't do as I do; do as I tell you to do". It rankles a bit when you have somebody behaving like that, because in Scotland we were told it was going to be a numbers exercise only, with 70-odd thousand constituents. This is a similar experience to what is going to happen to boundaries and constituencies throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland if this proposal goes ahead. It has happened already in microcosm in Scotland. We were told it was only about numbers, that communities do not count and that there would be lines drawn on a map to count numbers, and that is what happened. The constituency that I happened to represent at the time-I had the core of Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway-was amalgamated with Blantyre and Burnbank. Then because of the numbers and drawing lines on a map exercise, to save the Scottish Parliament seats being reduced-to save the party of the then Deputy First Minister having its seats reduced-the town of Hamilton was halved, and Hamilton West came into the Rutherglen seat and became part of Rutherglen and Hamilton West. The other half of Hamilton town went in to join Clydesdale and became Lanark and Hamilton East. That is what happened, and I went at that time from 53,000 constituents to 74,000 or 75,000, and now that seat contains 77,000 electors.
	There has been great discussion here about whether it makes any difference or not. I went through it and it does make a difference. I knew and know every single street in those three communities I have mentioned: Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway. I was the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West for just under five years and I am quite convinced there were some streets in those three extra areas-Blantyre, Burnbank and Hamilton West-that I had never been in, whereas I prided myself on having delivered leaflets in every street in the former boundaries of the constituency I represented. It may be an intellectual or esoteric thing but I thought that I lost something. I knew that part of my constituency much better. That was not just because I was born and brought up there. It was more compact. You could get around it easier and quicker. People knew you and the area. The extra 25,000 constituents plus those from the extended area-because it was not quite rural but it was certainly less urbanised than parts of the Rutherglen area-made a difference. It was only five years but I still believe that I did not get to know that area as well as I would have liked to.
	This is what is coming to constituencies. "Warn" is a heavy word but I certainly advise that what MPs face is even worse than that because of what is facing their constituencies. The town of Hamilton has never been the same since it was split between two constituencies. I always felt guilty that half of Hamilton town was put into Rutherglen purely and simply to make up the numbers. If you talk to people in Hamilton, they are still annoyed and angry and they feel that their sense of belonging to Hamilton has been badly damaged. We are talking about a ruler across a map. The process was about numbers only and Hamilton was halved for the first time in its at least 170-year history as a Hamilton-based constituency.
	Folk might say that it does not make any difference. I advise your Lordships' House that I came through it. I saw, experienced and still watch it and it is absolutely wrong. The impact on communities throughout the country from this, as well as from the extra 25,000 or 26,000 constituents-which might be less in England; I know that there are wide variations-will be quite drastic. I like to think that people in Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway could get to me any time they wanted. My phone number was in the book and is still in the book. Folk knew where I stayed and came to the door. It was just like being a councillor-and they all knew me when I was a councillor. That is the identification that MPs and former MPs know they have established with their constituencies.
	I hope that I will not be accused of overstating the case but that is going to be, at the very least, severely damaged under these proposals because the constituency connection will be destroyed. If anybody has any doubts of that, they can come to the town of Hamilton. I will not need to set anybody up. Speak to anybody from Hamilton and they will immediately say, "This is terrible. The town does not feel the same. We haven't got a united voice". My parliamentary neighbour, Jimmy Hood, and I did our best to try to make sure that we co-operated to represent the town of Hamilton as a whole. However, it becomes disjointed through reality because you are going through different bits of the constituency at different times. It affects constituencies in the way that I have described.
	I have a fondness for remembering the role that the Liberals played, especially the then Deputy First Minister. The Scotland Act was the settled will of the Scottish people-that was fine-but the Liberals fought tooth and nail to retain their Scottish Parliament seats. Again, it is "Don't do as I do; do as I tell you to do". All MPs-it does not matter whether they are Conservative, Labour or Liberal-will feel the effect on their constituents and there will be a backlash in years to come.

Baroness Taylor of Bolton: My Lords, I am reluctant to intervene in this debate because I have spent a lot of time over the last few days listening to people talk about this issue. However, I think that the points that have been raised by my noble friends, especially those with experience in another place, should be taken very seriously. I have been moved by the trip down memory lane from my noble friends Lord Snape, Lord Grocott and Lord Rooker to remember many of the times that we had when we first arrived in another place in 1974, when there were 630 Members of Parliament. A few of us were new and we had to learn the ropes. At that time we were perhaps the first of a new generation who actually understood what the role of MPs would be in the future. I remember, when I suggested that I would have an office in the constituency, that many of my more senior colleagues told me I was creating a rod for my own back and that this was not something that was done. I should go to Members' Lobby and the post office, pick up my post and look through it, discard what I could and do a cursory note to the rest saying that their opinion or their problem had been noted. Things have changed very dramatically, as noble friends have explained.
	Part of the problem is that we are starting this whole process from the wrong end. It is like looking down a telescope. We are talking about what voting systems should be. We are talking about the number of MPs and nobody is talking about the function of the House of Commons and the role that Members of Parliament have to, and ought to, play. When we come on to later debates, including the relationship between this House and another place, all those fundamental questions will have to be asked again. The Government are introducing a whole series of piecemeal changes which, put together, are totally rewriting the British constitution without anyone stepping back and looking at the overall impact. I think that is probably one of the most serious consequences and to discuss the number of MPs in isolation from all the other issues is just ridiculous. I am sure that the new Members who came into the House of Commons last year-something like 35 per cent of all Members were new at the last election-do not yet realise the full implications that this Bill will have on them, not least, as has been pointed out today, by the completely ridiculous suggestion that you should have boundary changes every five years.
	My noble friend Lord McAvoy has just outlined the very dramatic consequences that can come from a boundary revision. I, likewise, have gone through boundary changes in both the constituencies I represented. In Bolton West, which was my home town-very much in the same way that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, was talking about the area he knew-identifying with your constituency was actually the key to providing the kind of service that was needed. Politics comes into this of course and unfortunately in 1983 I lost that seat, partly because there were new boundary changes. Then I represented Dewsbury, which is a former textile town. It is very compact and very close to the next-door town of Batley. There is a great rivalry but they are very close and have exactly the same kind of problems-a declining woollen industry, difficult housing issues and a lot of immigration and consequent issues. When it came to the boundary changes in 1992, the Boundary Commission decided that certain things should happen.
	In supporting my noble friend Lord Snape in his probing amendment, I am not saying that the boundaries we have at the moment are absolutely perfect. We have all had discussions or disputes or appeared at boundary reviews trying to put our views as to why certain parts of a constituency should be here or there. What happens when you have a boundary review is that those of us who felt strongly about it could make the case. I could make the case as to why certain parts of Kirklees-because under local government reorganisation many years ago Dewsbury, along with Batley, had gone into Kirklees-should be in with Dewsbury or in with Huddersfield next door or even with Batley. Local knowledge, based on where people are working, where children go to school and where the bus routes are, is vital. What you should be creating is not a constituency with an arbitrary number of constituents but a constituency that has an identity-a community that can identify with the Member of Parliament who is going to represent them. I think that is the overriding consideration. My overriding concern is not whether the number is 650, 630 or-with due respect to my noble friend-640; it is whether anyone as an individual Member of Parliament can serve their constituency because of that very significant constituency link.
	There will still be problems. There will still be issues because boundaries at the moment are not perfect. I have had the difficult experience-as I suggest many others have had-where boundaries sometimes lose a little enclave and people in that area think that you are their Member of Parliament. You have to tell them very carefully and often very cautiously, because they may be very upset, that actually you cannot represent them or take up their issue. However, if overall you can identify with that area then I think that it is likely that you will provide a better service for your constituency and your constituency will know who to go to and what to demand from you. I think that is key in terms of what we should be doing today.
	I was very interested, however, in what the noble Lord, Lord Winston, said and the question he posed about the statistics and how you work it out. This again is part of the problem. We do not have the essential building blocks and analysis in place to accept what the Government are suggesting or indeed to reject it. We are taking ideas that have come from nowhere, it seems, and we are being told that we should in fact have lines on maps. I agree with my noble friend Lady Smith that the Government should not be setting these arbitrary lines. In a sense it reminds me of days of empire when countries went round the world carving up Africa and saying that a line should be the boundary between two countries. Just think of some of the problems that led to later. I think we are storing up many problems in the future and think it is really very significant that many of the questions that have been asked cannot be answered.
	As I mentioned earlier, Dewsbury is a small industrial town with its own character and issues. Part of the time I was the MP there-in one incarnation because the boundaries changed very dramatically-Dewsbury had attached to it two rural wards from another part of Kirklees, wards which actually had been in different constituencies over many boundary reviews. This was a very middle-class area, very rural, and when I held surgeries there few people came. Why? They all wrote letters. Basically, they wrote letters about planning issues, very often saying that they did not want things to be built in that area. However, when I had a surgery in Dewsbury it was there for hours and there would be lots of people there. Have a surgery on a similar day out of town in a rural area and somebody might wander in to talk about something and have a chat, but basically when people had a problem there they wrote and later they used the internet, and now it will all be the internet.
	I think that this is a very ill advised Bill. It is going to store up many problems in the future. It is going to destabilise how Members of Parliament work in the future if they are going to be in a constant state of revolution and I hope that my noble friend gets some answers to his questions.

Lord Myners: My Lords, I speak as someone who did not have experience in the other place. I have been struck throughout this debate by the number of contributors who sat in the other place and the informed experience that they were able to share with this House in talking about this issue. They have also demonstrated the great skills of those who have worked in the other House-their ability to bring persuasive arguments together in a concise, efficient and articulate manner. However, I did not sit in the other place; I joined your Lordships' House in October 2008, at the peak of the banking crisis.
	I would like to follow up something that was said by my noble friend Lord Rooker. He mentioned the somewhat intemperate interview that the Leader of the House gave to Sky Television. I was rather impressed by the Leader of the House when I arrived in this House; he was then the Leader of the Opposition. He was rather posh-the sort of person I expected to find in the Lords. He was courteous, considerate and knowledgeable of the etiquette and protocols of the House. I fear that some of those qualities left him during the early stages of today's debate. I was struck at one point, for instance, when he said he had heard "nothing new" from Members in their contributions to the debate.
	I have sat on the Front Bench occasionally, taking forward rather tedious but complex legislation, and the temptation to turn and natter to your colleagues alongside you or behind you is high. However, I always tried to resist this temptation, because to do so would have been a discourtesy to the House. Yet that was precisely what the Leader of the House was doing, so when he said "I've heard no new arguments", it was probably because he was not listening to the arguments that were coming from the House. That strikes me as a great act of discourtesy to the House from the Leader. I hope that if he is of intemperate mood at the moment-and the Sky interview might suggest that-we can look upon this as a short aberration, and the great respect I had for this man because of his poshness will return in due course.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: It would not matter if he were in an intemperate mood now, because it is not his shift.

Viscount Astor: Is the noble Lord going to address the amendment or just make a speech on a totally different issue?

Lord Myners: Of course I am addressing the amendment; it is good to see the noble Viscount in his place at this particular time of the debate. One of the things that I found difficult was getting into this debate, probably because I kept waiting for the other side to stand up and express a view. Of course they did not, and my own colleagues rose to speak.

Lord Kinnock: Before my noble friend leaves the question relating to the Leader of the House, which is directly germane to this amendment and the way in which the body of amendments have been treated, and is therefore, even in the strictest terms, very much in order, I put it to him that a man who is innately courteous, considerate and convivial, as well as being Conservative-all the Cs-might not have changed in his nature. What has changed is the environment in which he is operating. Now in 2011, with contentious legislation before us, the Leader of the House has an automatic government majority for the first time since 1999 and the departure of the hereditary Peers. This can lead to a hubristic reaction to criticism and cross-questioning. It might be followed classically by Nemesis, or the Leader of the House might learn better.

Lord Myners: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kinnock for that perceptive observation. In some ways, some of the qualities that he has noted were equally evident this evening from those on the Liberal Benches, who are clearly very uncomfortable. They are not speaking to amendments but, goodness me, just look at the way the two of them at the moment, and at various times up to five or six, have sat there looking very exercised about the act in which they are presently involved.
	Let me talk a little, when speaking to this amendment, as I am, about my experiences as a junior Minister, which I have shared with some junior Ministers who have recently been appointed to the Government. One of the things that struck me was that you spent the first half hour of every morning topping and tailing letters. I was doing over 200 letters a day that had been passed to Ministers from Members of Parliament on behalf of their constituents. You got to know the Member of Parliament as a result of this process. You got to notice that some MPs were very assiduous. They followed up your reply. Others did not. I was struck by the difference between the performance of the best compared with the worst. The worst would send you a covering letter that was pre-printed, with a pre-printed scribble on the bottom. Others would already have read the letter, reviewed the issues and sought guidance, and would then follow up on the responses.

Lord Snape: Some of us who wrote letters to Ministers sometimes got the impression that Ministers never read the replies either.

Lord Myners: I have to say to my noble friend that, when I first came into government, I inherited nearly 3,000 unanswered letters. As I was the most junior Minister in the Treasury, these letters were pushed down the chain. Noble friends from the other place will realise how this game is played. As far as a junior Minister is concerned, those letters came to me. Whether they were addressed to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, they seemed to come to me, and I tried to move some of them on to someone else, but there was no one below me in the Treasury. If I did not read all the replies, it was not due to a lack of effort, although I was struck by the great difference between Members of Parliament who took this role seriously and those who did not. I see that in the context, as my noble friend Lady Taylor has said, of this legislation being carried through the Commons largely on the votes of people who are very new to Parliament.

Lord Tyler: I am grateful to the noble Lord for sitting down; I have the greatest respect for him as a fellow Cornishman. He was lecturing the House earlier about discourtesy. I wonder whether he recalls that it is the normal practice in this House to address the House rather than to keep his colleagues awake by turning to them.

Lord Myners: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for that assistance. I recognise that I am very new, and there, once again, I have made a terrible mistake, for which I apologise.

Lord Winston: I find it distasteful to criticise the Leader of the House while he is not in the Chamber, but I think the Front Bench said something that was very relevant to what the noble Lord was saying. I think the word that was used to describe our behaviour in the Chamber today was "irresponsible". That is the issue. It is completely responsible, because surely we see a major constitutional issue here, and we feel that it is our duty to do what we can to oppose this. The trivial intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is quite inappropriate when we are actually trying to tease out what our responsibility is. I hope the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him, but it does seem that we should make that point.

Lord Myners: I note the observation and the support that my noble friend Lord Winston offers in that respect, but I am also sufficiently new here still to be content to be guided by all Members of the House in the appropriate courtesies of the House. I was speaking to the variable performance of Members of the other place as I saw it from a ministerial position, which led me to ask what the appropriate size of a constituency was.
	Earlier in our debate this evening, we had an extremely interesting contribution from my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford, who talked about the principles that might determine the size of a constituency. I mostly come from Cornwall, as does the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I had always understood that one reason why constituencies in Cornwall were smaller than elsewhere was the geographical distance within the constituency and the time taken to travel to and from the constituency. Of course, my political views were formed in my teens when I was at school in Truro, when a journey from London to Truro would have taken 10 or 12 hours on the A30, and it seemed to make good sense to have smaller constituencies.
	I find it very difficult to know where my decision will finally lie. I listened to the debate in the House on the size of the other place, but it seems to me that this decision requires care and attention to the colour, texture, features and particular needs of different constituencies.
	I make one final observation from my experience as a junior Minister in the previous Government about the other place's difficulty dealing with the detail of legislation. This is partially a reflection-I do not for one minute suggest that people in the other place are not diligent-of the additional burdens that are now placed on Members' time in the other place. Members of Parliament are now increasingly looked to by their constituents to solve every issue relating to local communities and families, and will probably be even more so now that this Government are stripping resources out of local government. Is it not interesting that when government has abundant resources, it centralises, but when government cuts costs, it decentralises in order to push the burden of that cost cutting on to local authorities? The pressures on Members of Parliament in the other place will become even greater as a consequence of the changes in economic management.
	When it came to legislation with which I was involved on the Front Bench, I thought at first that it would be helpful to read Hansard from the other place to guide me on what the issues were likely to be. I found that the only person who really challenged the detail of legislation on finance was the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who struck me in some cases as the only informed opponent of legislation in detail for which I was responsible. It certainly did not receive sufficient attention in the House of Commons.
	I recognise that I bring a very limited perspective here, and there is much more that I will wish to say later in the debate about issues relating to Cornwall, where the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was a representative for many years in the other place, but from my perspective as a Minister and as a person who is proud to be a Member of this new House, I am deeply concerned that an arbitrary figure has been picked out of the air. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, putting his hand up and pulling that figure down on Second Reading. I thought that that summed up the amount of thought the Government had put into this matter. The people of this country should reasonably expect the number of constituencies to be determined carefully by an independent body, as in the past-a body whose decisions we can all support.

Lord Boateng: My Lords, I find myself energised by the contribution of my noble friend Lord Myners, at a time when I thought only a double espresso would do. His contribution has woken me up and got me thinking. We owe him a debt of gratitude for building on the contribution of my noble friend who moved this amendment. I hesitate to use the term "GOATs", because it implies that the rest of us are sheep and separating the sheep from the goats, but from time to time a fresh look at these issues is useful from someone who is not as inured to and hardened against the political processes as those of us old sweats. We have had that this morning from my noble friend Lord Myners.
	My noble friend got me thinking about the challenges that we face in considering this Bill, particularly this section of it, and in defining what exactly we want from constituencies and from individual Members of Parliament and their relationship with those constituencies. It would be sad if those observing these proceedings were to take the view that we were polarised across the political process on different sides of the House about the special relationship between constituencies and Members of Parliament, and about the value of proceeding not by arbitrary diktat but by considered inquiry based on the evidence.
	I looked at what had been said by members of the party opposite in the other place, who helped us in more reflective and considered times to address the need for reform. There is a need for reform. It would be quite wrong to seek to divide this House on the basis that those on this side of it were against all reform, were complacent and self-satisfied as regards existing conditions, and that the energy and drive for progress and reform came only from the Benches opposite. What does energise us on this side of the House is the need for reflection, evidence and a capacity to be, as it were, almost above the fray in determining what the national interest is.
	I found a useful contribution to the debate in a paper presented to the parliamentary affairs journal of Oxford University Press entitled, 'Far Too Elaborate About So Little': New Parliamentary Constituencies for England, by Ron Johnston, David Rossiter and Charles Pattie, three academic, impartial observers of our system. They examined very carefully the views across our Houses about how one should go about identifying and defining constituencies and forming them around viable communities with a link with their elected representatives.
	The article referred to a contribution from a Conservative Member of Parliament in a Wiltshire constituency on the removal of wards from the large Salisbury constituency. I think that I know who this particular Member of Parliament is but as his name is not cited in the document I do not want to embarrass him by naming him. He loves his constituency and his party but loves his country and the parliamentary system more than both those things. In his oral evidence to the inspector at the inquiry he said that he did not wish to lose a single elector from the constituency. That is something which all of us who have served in the other place understand. Whatever issues we may have with individuals who are perhaps persistent in their letter writing-some of them use green ink, which is always a sign-and appear on a regular basis at one's constituency surgeries, one grows fond of them. They are part and parcel of the life of the constituency, they have a view and they care and you welcome them and do not want to lose such people through boundary changes.
	So the local Member did not wish to lose a single elector from his constituency, but he accepted-and we have all had to do this from time to time-the absolute inevitability of the restructuring. He gave a long historical account of the constituency. Frankly, for those of us who served in the other place-and indeed noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, have observed those who served-you actually become quite attached to your constituency and its history. It is important when someone comes in from outside the area to adjudicate on the nature of the constituency boundaries as to whether that person understands the history. One feels duty-bound to go on about it sometimes at length. However, having given this long historical account, he concluded:
	"It is not in my nature to resist sensible reform".
	All Members on this side of the House can empathise with that. It is not in our nature to resist sensible reform, and I hope that the Minister and his colleagues on the Benches opposite accept that fact, stated in good faith. He goes on to say:
	"If it is a judgment of those charged with the care of our democracy"-
	That relates exactly to a point that has raised its head time and time again in the course of our debates today. Care for democracy is not the business of Members of Parliament alone. There are advantages to having another source of influence and power outside these Houses of Parliament which has the final and determinate say.
	We on this side of the House are not saying there is no role for Members of Parliament-far from it-in determining the number of seats. Sure, we have concerns, which my noble friend has sought to tease out in his amendment, about the arbitrary fixing of those numbers of seats, but we do not say that it is a matter for others apart from ourselves alone. However, we recognise that there is an advantage, as a Conservative Member says, of the judgment of those charged with the care of our democracy having a final and determinate say. He goes on to say:
	"If it is the judgment of those charged with the care of our democracy that what is proposed is in the national interest, then, provided they will give due consideration to our requests, so be it".
	What is important is the proviso,
	"provided they will give due consideration to our requests".
	What is so offensive about what is proposed by some Members opposite? I do not believe that all Members opposite actually believe in what they are putting before this House. I just do not believe it; because if they have had the experience, which I respect because I served alongside them for many years-experience which we have all had with our constituencies-they know that provided there is an opportunity to express local concerns to ensure that local conditions are taken into account, and that it is not arbitrary and not fixed, and provided there is a space to do that, at the end of the day they are prepared to take whatever it is that emerges from the process. What is not acceptable is this arbitrary figure arrived at we know not how.
	Having quoted that Conservative Member of Parliament, I shall move on briefly. We do not want excessively to go down memory lane-

Lord Myners: Oh!

Lord Boateng: I am not going to rise to the temptation that the noble Lord, Lord Myners, casts in front of me. I do not want excessively to go down memory lane, although I want to go down it a bit, because it would demonstrate the point that I am seeking to make. These are not always partisan matters in which, in the course of a local inquiry, one party takes one view and another party takes another, and the MPs divide accordingly. I think of the last inquiry that I was involved in. It was seeking to determine where a particular council housing estate with a lot of problems, should finally fall in the revision of the boundaries in the London Borough of Brent. I put in my submission, which was that it should not come into my constituency. The then right honourable Member for Brent North, the very distinguished Conservative, Sir Rhodes Boyson, put in his submission, based on his having represented that part of the constituency in the past. The then member for Brent East, Ken Livingstone, put in his submission.
	It was interesting that I, the Member of Parliament for Brent South, and the Member of Parliament for Brent North, took one view, and the Member of Parliament for Brent East took another. It was Conservative and Labour on the one hand and the Member of Parliament for Brent East on the other. He arrived at his representations to the inquiry without any reference to me, and I arrived at my conclusions without any reference to Sir Rhodes Boyson. However, the two of us took a particular view of the needs of that constituency in an area that we both knew very well, because at the time both of us had done a lot of work in that ward. The Member of Parliament for Brent East had not done as much work in that ward, but he was absolutely determined that the ward should not pass into his constituency.
	That is the sort of representation that Members on all sides of this House will know and understand, because it reflects the business of local democracy, and meeting local needs and concerns. I wonder if noble Lords on the other side of the House-I talk not just of Conservative Members but also of Liberal Democrat Members in the coalition-believe in their hearts that losing that link is a price worth paying for such political gain as they may arrive at in the short term. I suspect that some of them do not. One of our functions in the course of our debate on these issues must be to tease out those Members on the other side, and the issues that relate to them, so that they can come clean about how they feel and there is no longer this omerta on their side, where they fear to speak out for whatever reason and are encouraged to be absent so we do not hear the other side.
	Before resuming my place, I draw to the attention of noble Lords an issue that has come up today and that I hope might persuade Members opposite to pause and think a little. In today's Evening Standard, there appears the headline:
	"London tops league table of cities open to foreigners".
	It goes on to point out what many of us who represents London seats know well:
	"London is the world's most 'open' city because of its welcoming attitude to foreigners and liberal immigration policies, according to a new league table".
	The article continues:
	"The capital beat New York, Los Angeles, Dusseldorf and Toronto in an assessment by the British Council of cities' ability to attract and benefit from international populations. Among the 54 factors considered"-
	in arriving at this league table-
	"were ease of firms to hire foreign labour, entry into the relevant country, the rights given to migrants and their ability to bring in family members ... Announcing its findings today, the British Council ... insisted that London's current 'open' nature was of significant benefit to the capital".
	The article goes on to quote people-including the Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson-who express concern that anything should occur that would interfere in any way with this welcoming approach to migration. It quotes London First and university chiefs and then refers to someone else who is objective and independent; namely, Professor Mike Hardy, the head of partnerships at the British Council, who states:
	"Openness is a real advantage for cities if they are pursuing plans to be internationally connected and play international roles".
	The article goes on to look at some factors that influence openness. This bears directly on the amendment that we are considering. While some factors influencing openness are beyond the direct control of cities, many are well within the control or immediate influence of city governments, and the city's identity and character. In the course of this debate, not just in relation to London but to a number of other cities in our country, we have heard reference to identity and character as forming an important part of the basis on which constituency boundaries might be drawn up. They include housing, culture and, importantly, the kind of local democracy it practises and the forms of participation that it encourages.
	For those of us who are London Members, and those who are Members in large metropolitan cities, the reality is that a large proportion of the population are foreigners who have no eligibility to vote but who are a welcome part of our communities. Quite rightly at this time, they draw on the services of Members of Parliament and elected representatives. There will not be a single former Member of the other place in the Chamber this evening who does not know that in constituency surgeries, one is as likely to see somebody who is not eligible to vote-not just by virtue of appearance or otherwise on the electoral roll, but simply because they are not citizens or Commonwealth subjects-as somebody who is. However, quite rightly, those people find in a Member of Parliament in their constituency surgery someone who is welcoming, someone who has time for them and someone who deals with their specific problems. That contributes to making London the open city that it is, it contributes to making London top of this league table and it causes other great cities in our country to be magnets for bright, skilled, energetic people from all over the world who will, from time to time, have to call on the services of their local Member of Parliament.
	In the course of our deliberations on the Bill, we will address this issue in a number of amendments. I have proposed one that states that we should look at the census rather than simply the electoral roll when we come to determine constituency sizes and boundaries. This is not by any means a view that has not in the past been given the care, reflection and consideration that is it due in circumstances that were not charged with the sort of arbitrary numerical approach that is now being adopted by the parties opposite. Most recently, a report to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, The Electoral Commission and the Redistribution of Seats, was submitted by David Butler and Iain McLean. What they do, usefully, is to look at the arguments-the pros and cons-for viewing the census as the basis for redistribution in the future. They make the point-rightly, Members of the Committee may think-that the census should in principle provide a most accurate count of the UK resident population. They go on to indicate where the move from electorate to population as the basis for drawing up constituency boundaries would be hotly controversial. The authors refer to the situation in Northern Ireland, where they believe there would be considerable controversy if we were to make that move. Nevertheless, they say that this is something that ought to be out there-that the census, with all its limitations, will potentially have a role to play.
	The tragedy of the approach being taken by Members opposite is that we will not have the opportunity to have that debate. That cannot be right, and I ask, even at this late stage and late hour, that, in responding, the Minister goes beyond the negative and the narrow partisan and party-political point-scoring that I fear has, from time to time, characterised the response of some Members opposite. I ask that he goes to the merit of the arguments because, if you do that, you find that there is something to which we need to give serious consideration-maintaining this country's position in the global democratic league tables. That is what we all seek to do on this side of the Committee and that is why I commend my noble friend's amendment.

Lord Morris of Handsworth: My Lords, with my background, noble Lords will understand if I gaze at the Clock and have in mind the working time directive. Despite the allegations of filibustering levelled at this side of the Chamber, I believe that the debate on the Bill has been healthy and good-good for the House itself. It has been healthy because it has explored some of the principles on which this House stands and completes its tasks. Therefore, the tension in the debate on the Bill comes about because the Opposition are doing their job. They are rigorously scrutinising the Bill and holding the Government to account, as they should.
	In my relatively short time in your Lordships' House, I have heard many debates on the role and function of the House of Lords. However, what we have not done with the same regularity is to look at how the House operates and delivers its remit. It is very clear that the long-established conventions are recognised and understood. It is also clear that something is missing in the way that the Bill is being handled-it is that element called the usual channels. As a relatively new Member, it took me some time to understand the importance of the usual channels. However, I now understand how they operate. The usual people meet in the usual place, they discuss the usual agenda and, as usual, they emerge with agreement-not the usual agreement but specific agreement.
	I have no problem with the usual channels. Indeed, I built a failed career around the usual channels. One of the issues before the House is the size of constituencies. As you look back, you think, "I've heard this before; I've read this before". I recall that, in the charter presented in another place in 1848 by Feargus O'Connor, the Chartist Member of Parliament for Nottingham, equity of constituency numbers was one of the key elements. Indeed, it was quite revolutionary. He advocated annual Parliaments, which is a step too far for me. If you look at the charter, MPs' pay was an issue. We have been here before. What they did not have then, but we have today, is the advantage of the usual channels. Above all else, we cannot afford to lose that mechanism for resolving issues and maintaining the culture and traditions of your Lordships' House. That is absolutely sacrosanct.
	I hope, therefore, that we can learn lessons from our predecessors in many instances. It is right that this House and the Opposition should hold the Government to account. It is right that we should ask for justification of all decisions that are being made. However, in the end, I am sure that, as we move into another day and seek to look at today's agenda, we will not stray too far. We will remember precisely what the issues are about. I, for one, hope that the usual channels will find their way to their rightful place and deliver what is expected from your Lordships' House.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I can be fairly brief. I thank my noble friend Lord Snape and all the others who have spoken so well in this debate. I know the Minister came on shift just before this debate began; I do not know how much of the last debate he heard. I do not know if he heard my brief address before taking over. I will make just a couple of points. From the many important points that have been made in this debate, the real principle has been the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his or her constituency, about which many-some with great experience of the other place and some without-have spoken.
	There are two points that I want to ask the noble and learned Lord about. First, there is the issue, which arises again, about the fact that Parliament has not set an exact number of Members of Parliament since, we believe, 1832. Rules that have provided pretty adequately in earlier years-most latterly, in 1986-have been very carefully and sensibly worded. It is not as though Parliament does not give a clue as to the area in which the number of MPs should be, but it refuses to give an exact figure. On this side, we think that is an excellent thing and believe that the exact number should be a matter for the independent boundary review. It also acts as a sort of security key and means that the Government cannot be criticised for having got through Parliament an exact figure. Why is it that the Government want to change that well-established principle?
	The second issue I want to raise is the one about lowering the number of Members of Parliament to 600. We believe that the policy of reducing the House of Commons to 600 seats has so far been proposed without, I am afraid, any coherent explanation, any coherent analysis, or indeed any proper consideration. Many voices across the political spectrum-in both Houses and outside-have criticised the Government's failure up till now to explain why 600 seats is the appropriate level at which to fix membership of the other place. I repeat a quote that the Minister will have heard before from the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee of the other place, which concluded in October,
	"There may be a case for reducing the number of Members of the House to 600, but the Government has not made it".
	The Government have not explained how this figure corresponds to the role of Members of Parliament, about which we have heard in this debate, or what that role itself should be. They have not explained how this figure will enable Members of Parliament to provide a better service to their constituents or a more effective performance as parliamentarians. I say to the Minister that it is time that the Government at last make the case for why the number is 600, and why there should be a lowering of the number of Members of Parliament from 650 to 600. One thing I am sure of is that the noble and learned Lord will, as he customarily does, answer in his reasoned and measured way, unlike-I am afraid-some others on the Front Bench.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My Lords, at one point in the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that he wondered if Ministers would bring themselves to look at it again. In responding to the debate for the second time in this area of discussion, I am obliged to look at it again. It may come as no surprise that I still believe that the 600 proposed in this Bill is what the Committee should support. The amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would reduce the number of current constituencies in the other place by 10 and result in 640 constituencies, which would reduce the number by 50. It was suggested-I am sure that it was just a slip of the tongue-that somehow or other the Government draw up the boundaries. That is clearly not the case. That will still be a matter for the independent boundary commission. Consideration of the workload of Members of Parliament has been a strong feature of the debate on this amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, talked about trips down memory lane, and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, gave us a more recent trip down memory lane than some of those who have served in the other place did. I can understand why I might be tempted to follow that course, but I do not particularly want to go too far down memory lane. However, I think it is important that this debate has been informed by that experience. I identified with the first part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about the different range of what MPs are expected to do and the different ways in which they go about doing it. It certainly struck a chord with me when he said, just as you think you have heard the last of what you might be asked to do, something comes along the following week that you could not have conceived of; I am sure that most Members in the other place have had that experience at some time or other.
	The noble Lord, Lord Winston, asked what we are requiring of Members of Parliament and talked about the importance of mathematical formulae in his work. However, I think it was made clear in a debate to which I contributed almost 12 hours ago that mathematical formulae do not actually work in situations like this. As the noble Lord, Lord Myners, said, there is variable performance. In some cases the variable performance will be because of different personalities of the Members of Parliament or different circumstances in their constituencies. If you represented a rural constituency, how could you ever factor in the possibility that there might be another outbreak of BSE or foot and mouth disease? It is simply impossible. At the end of the day, the people who make the judgments as to how well or how poorly an individual Member of Parliament discharges the many different responsibilities on him or her are the voters. There is no job description, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said. That is why any way of trying to boil it down to some mathematical formula simply will not work.

Lord Howarth of Newport: If mathematical formulae do not work, why are the Government determined to impose a quota of 76,000 voters per constituency?

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: The noble Lord is not comparing like with like. I said it is impossible to work out a mathematical formula relating to what the workload of an individual Member of Parliament is. I think it is ultimately a matter of judgment as to what level MPs can best serve their constituents.
	The noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked why the Government wish to fix the number; previously, the Boundary Commission has rules but the number is not fixed. The present legislation states:
	"The electorate of any constituency shall be as near the electoral quota as is practicable".
	It could be argued that is a more stringent target than the range we put forward under the Bill, which is plus or minus 5 per cent. However, this requirement is then balanced against other rules and factors. The result of the overall scheme is that the equality and fairness in the weight of a vote, which is enshrined as a principle in rule 5 as it stands at the moment, ends up as one consideration among many. Then, of course, when Boundary Commission recommendations are debated, political parties, which are usually the principal players in the consultation process, use any factor that they possibly can to advance electoral interests. It is also of interest that the British Academy report on the Bill notes,
	"This new set of rules that the Boundary Commissions must apply is clear and consistent",
	and,
	"a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commissions (they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory)".
	We have discussed on more than one occasion the issue of the present arrangements whereby there has been continual creep-there has been one exception, since 1950, when the reduction of the Scottish Members brought the number down; in every other location it has gone up. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, that my recollection is that Hamilton was split in two long before that reduction happened following devolution, because I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, was Member for Hamilton South, and he stood down and fought a by-election before there was any change in the Westminster boundaries. I also point out that, whereas the reduction proposed in this Bill, from 650 to 600, is a reduction of some 7 per cent, the reduction that occurred in Scotland following devolution, from 72 to 59, was a reduction of some 18 per cent, which is twice as great as is proposed under this Bill.
	I said earlier that both parties in this Government made commitments in the election to reduce the number. I will not go over in detail again the context in which the Liberal Democrats made theirs because it has been explained. Nevertheless, the background involved seeking to reduce the numbers. We have said that to go too far may lead to even greater upheaval and disruption. On the other hand, as for the figure of 76,000, which I have mentioned before, about a third of existing seats are within 5 per cent of this figure-on either side-and this means it is within the existing range of experience of many Members of Parliament. I cannot accept what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said; that, somehow or other, the number of 76,000 weakens the link between Members of Parliament and their constituents. The fact is that a third of existing seats are within 5 per cent of 76,000, on either side, and no one has suggested that that particular figure means that that link does not currently exist. We have proposed a modest cut. As I said, it is a reduction that was proposed in the manifestos of both the coalition parties. I also note-and did not pick up before-that the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, indicated before that this House has in the past supported a Private Member's Bill to reduce the number; but of course this particular clause, when it was in the other place, was substantially supported by Members in the other place.
	That is not an excuse for it not being examined in your Lordships' House in this Committee. Nevertheless, those who are most directly affected by this actually endorsed the proposal by a substantial majority. For completeness, I would also say to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who raised the point about the increase in the size of the Bill, this was done by government amendments adding schedules to the Bill, made in the other place, rather than being included in the Bill at introduction. It was to allow time to discuss the details of them with devolved Administrations, electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission. In any event, I think it is fair to point out-and this may be the reason why the press have not latched onto it-that the vast majority of time taken so far to debate this Bill has been spent on the clauses and not the schedules, and the vast majority of amendments laid and debated have related to the clauses and not the schedules. I think that it is not comparing like with like to suggest that the doubling of the size of the Bill has led to the increased debates in the Committee of your Lordships' House. I think that the addition of the schedules by government amendment in the other place did not add to the time needed to debate the Bill there in any significant way.
	If I have repeated myself, it is because many of the arguments have been similar. I have not addressed the points made with regard to the relationship between the number of Members in the other House and the number of Ministers. I have indicated before that the Government do think that it is a matter of proper debate. There are other amendments which we can come to and we can have a fuller debate. Likewise, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, that the point about using the census he has indicated himself in his amendment, and I am sure that he will understand if I do not detain the House in Committee at this time when there will be an opportunity in a further amendment to debate that. With those words, I rather hope that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, will withdraw his amendment.

Lord McAvoy: My Lords, I am not intervening on the Minister, but I am clarifying that in 1999, George Robertson resigned the Hamilton South seat and Bill Tynan fought the by-election. The boundaries were changed for the 2005 general election, when I took over.

Lord Snape: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have participated in this debate. Again, it is instructive about the quality of your Lordships' House that, even at this unearthly hour of the day and on an amendment that followed a pretty similar one, we still had an exchange of views and some knowledgeable contributions, at least from this side of your Lordships' House. I am grateful to the Minister. It is a fact, as someone commented a moment or two ago, that if we do not particularly get enlightenment from this Minister, we get a bit more courtesy than we get from either the Leader of the House, who has not been seen-his shift obviously does not include nights-or from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who sometimes gives the impression at the Dispatch Box of a grumpy version of Blackpool's famous resident, Les Dawson. He sits there gurning, whingeing and banging about from time to time, and snapping nastily at anybody who has the temerity to ask him questions, to which he quite obviously either does not know the answer or cannot be bothered to find out. Therefore it is pleasure at least to listen to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of-I have forgotten his title so I will just call him Lord Wallace. The noble and learned Lord is perhaps a better way of doing it.

Noble Lords: The nice Lord.

Lord Snape: Yes, Mr Nice versus Mr Nasty at the Dispatch Box. Lord Nice, fine. We will agree to that.
	One or two questions were put to me, as the mover of the amendment, to which I would like to reply. First, any Member of your Lordships' House, and certainly any ex-Member of the other place, could handle a constituency of 90,000 people, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said. However, it illustrates that, even on five-year boundary reviews there is no guarantee that a constituency that starts off at 76,000 will not end up at somewhere like 90,000. The fact that my noble friend had that difficulty when he represented The Wrekin illustrates the problems that could be caused in future years. My noble friend Lord Winston, who is not in his place, put the question to me. He actually said that the blanket rule on the size of the constituency does not make sense; and, of course, he is right. No matter how well the nice Lord strings these replies together, the fact is that a constituency of 76,000, whether in an urban or a rural area, makes no real sense. As my noble friend Lord Winston said, some of the social problems in an urban area are enormous. Those of us who served in the other place know full well the variety of constituency problems that one deals with at a surgery. I do not pretend that it is any easier for predominantly Conservative Members of the other place who represent rural areas; it certainly will not be any easier with an electorate of 76,000. You need a tank full of fuel to get round the constituency on a Saturday morning.
	Again, there is no real explanation from the Government as to how that figure has been arrived at and what is the common sense, if any, behind it. My noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon said, and I agree, that she disagreed with the other place, or any Government, setting numbers for constituencies. However, if we are to debate matters here, we have to table amendments like this. I am not wedded to the figure of 645; it just happened to be fairly close to the 650 proposed at present. My noble friend amply illustrated the difficulty, which will arise more and more often in bigger constituencies, of dealing with two local authorities, two health authorities and two different police forces. That makes the job far more difficult for a Member of the other place.
	I do not want to repeat anything that I said in moving the amendment, but seeking from public funds the proper and adequate staffing to deal with that extra workload will not be an easy task. We can rely on the Daily Mail and its fellow newspapers to talk about how expensive democracy is becoming if and when adequate resources are provided for those who are to take on the extra workload.
	My noble friend Lord Rooker pointed out quite correctly that there is no real definition of the job of a Member of Parliament. Knowing that I was going to participate in this debate, I was throwing out some papers from my house and found some details of a surgery I did on a Saturday morning 10 or 11 years ago before I left the other place. It was not particularly busy; it was one of five that I did that day; there were three housing cases, one about a hospital appointment, one case about bus services in the area, three immigration cases and someone seeking my assistance in getting a cherished number plate. That is a fairly wide set of skills that Members of Parliament are supposed to demonstrate on a Saturday morning.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: No questions of policy?

Lord Snape: No questions on policy. In my constituency, they were quite happy to leave that sort of nonsense to me. They regarded my job as solving their problems-quite rightly; in my view, that is what MPs' surgeries should do. On the very rare occasion that anyone came to discuss policy, they were usually from what my noble friend referred to as the green ink brigade, invariably from either the far left or the far right, and both of them got fairly short shrift in West Bromwich town hall.

Lord Kinnock: Or from outer space.

Lord Snape: Or on something, I think is the proper description. My noble friend Lady Taylor rightly talked about the role of the House of Commons and how individual constituents identify with their Member of Parliament. They will have enormous difficulty with these bigger constituencies. My noble friend Lord Rooker will remember that in the 1980s, either Central Television or ATV-I think it was Central Television at the time-conducted an opinion poll in the Birmingham and West Bromwich areas about MPs' identities. A regular opinion poll was done in my constituency, which was highly marginal, and in a marginal constituency in the East Midlands. I was fortunate. My noble friend Lord Rooker and I scored the highest recognition, with about 70 per cent, in our respective constituencies. Seven out of 10 people approached knew the name of their Member of Parliament.
	In his case, it was because he was an extremely diligent and hard-working local MP. In my case, it was just that I was appearing on television fairly regularly in a programme called "Central Weekend".

Noble Lords: We remember it well.

Lord Snape: Indeed. My noble friends may scoff, but it did me no harm at successive general elections, so I will plead guilty to that. I am not getting involved in the spat between my noble friend Lord McAvoy and the nice Lord who responded; these Scottish matters are not for me. My noble friend made his point as elegantly as always.
	We have another similar amendment to follow, and I am sure that lots of new points will be made. Having listened to the Minister, I am sure that we can rely on his good temper and equanimity to get us through until breakfast.

Noble Lords: Lunch!

Lord Snape: Lunch, indeed. Until dinner, as far as some of my noble friends are concerned. Bearing in mind the equanimity with which the Minister replied, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 62 withdrawn.
	Amendment 63
	 Moved by Lord Kennedy of Southwark
	63: Clause 11, page 9, line 18, leave out "600" and insert "650"

Lord Kennedy of Southwark: The constitutional significance of the Bill cannot be overstated. It is very regrettable that there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny of a Bill on such important matters. The Government are in a pickle over this, and that is due to their way of handling the situation. That is clear in the tactics that they are deploying to try to force it through. It has been rammed through the Commons. I referred to members of the coalition in the other place who are opposed to specific measures in the Bill in my contribution on Second Reading. It is most regrettable that, despite repeated offers from the Labour Front Bench, no one has come forward to negotiate to move things forward sensibly. We will come to issues such as that of the Isle of Wight and Cornwall later, where there is much unhappiness on the coalition side of the House.
	The Government's whole approach to this has been wrong. I wonder what the advice of the Foreign Office would be to any Government abroad who had just been elected and said to us, "We are considering changing the number of Members of Parliament elected to our House. Do you think that that would be a good idea?".
	We have heard contributions from many noble Lords who have been Members in the other place about the work of Members of Parliament on Second Reading, and in debates on amendments moved in Committee. I have heard nothing from the government Front Bench to convince me that the work of Members of Parliament in the other place has not increased considerably. I was never a Member of the other House, but I recall, as a young Labour Party member and a constituent of Harriet Harman, helping her at her advice surgeries in the town halls in Camberwell and Walworth in the London Borough of Southwark on Friday nights nearly 28 years ago. They were packed with 60 or 70 people at a time with a whole variety of problems: housing, immigration and many other issues. That has only increased over time. That is only part of the important work that a Member of Parliament undertakes. I cannot see how any elector-any constituent-is better served by increasing the size of constituencies. The constituency of Peckham where I grew up is bounded by the constituencies of Southwark and Bermondsey, Dulwich and West Norwood, Lewisham and Deptford, and Vauxhall. All those constituencies have similar problems, and no voter living there could be served better by the proposals.
	I very much agree with the comment made by my noble friend Lady McDonagh about the basis on which the Government have selected the figure of 600. It is because that number benefits the Conservative Party-or it believes that it does. My amendment will ensure that county and city boundaries can be respected by the Boundary Commission.
	In the early 1990s, I was involved in the boundary inquiry in Coventry. I saw how the Boundary Commission got it wrong. The number of seats was being reduced from four to three, and it issued proposals putting together the Holbrooks ward of Coventry North West with the Longford ward of Coventry North East in the same constituency. It made no difference in outcome whether those two wards were in the same constituency or different constituencies. What the Boundary Commission had missed, looking at maps in London, was the Coventry to Nuneaton railway line, the A444 from junction 3 on the M6 leading into the city, and the two fields either side separating those two wards. The inquiry brought that out, the commission understood it, the proposals were changed and they remained in different constituencies. My amendment allows the commission to do that.
	Have the Government sought the advice of IPSA on these matters? I understand that many MPs will not have a home, an office or staff in their constituency. If the boundaries keep changing every four or five years, there could be a considerable waste of public money with people moving around all the time to ensure that they are in their constituency.
	I listened with great interest to the contribution of my noble friend Lady Billingham. She set out carefully the importance of community of interest. I recalled, as she spoke, the day that Donald Dewar came to support her in her election campaign in Corby. I met Donald at Kettering station and drove him to Corby. Donald was a great campaigner and we had a wonderful time. What made him chuckle was that he had travelled down from Scotland, had come to Corby and had met so many people from Glasgow and Lanarkshire. He knew some of the families and he got such a warm welcome. As my noble friend Lady Billingham said, younger people living there who had never been to Scotland in their lives spoke with what I can only describe as a Scottish accent. That was because of the nature and closeness of the community there. The proposals would ride roughshod over those communities.
	I worked for many years in the East Midlands. It is a wonderful place, a wonderful part of the country, but I am very worried about the effect that the proposals will have on those communities. The East Midlands is a series of principal towns or cities and rural counties. The cities of Derby, Nottingham and Leicester are unitary authorities, and the MPs in Nottingham and Leicester are coterminous there. There are county towns, such as Chesterfield and the wonderful city of Lincoln. There are coalfield communities in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire and there is the unique county of Rutland. My noble friend Lady Billingham also mentioned Northamptonshire, with its boot and shoe history-Doctor Martens in Wellingborough-and Weetabix in Kettering. The Government's proposals will do nothing for them.
	In conclusion, my amendment would fix the number of seats at 650, which is a better number than that proposed by the Government. I thank my noble friends Lady McDonagh and Lord Snape.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to make my first speech of the day. I was just thinking, as my noble friend Lord Kennedy was speaking, about some of the work that I have seen Members of Parliament do. I served for nearly four years on the Intelligence and Security Committee. A number of other Members here have done that. We met every Tuesday morning, and I used to see MPs turning up there regularly, Tuesday after Tuesday, as well as going in on a Monday to read the papers-we could not take them away because of their security level. That is inevitably some of the unseen work of Members of Parliament, yet vital work supervising the activities of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
	I am not supposed to say much about the work of the intelligence agencies and the Intelligence and Security Committee, but I can say that we got a list of things that were defined by the United Nations as unacceptable and degrading behaviour and torture. Just above waterboarding came sleep deprivation. I know why now. After a while, you get disoriented, you get confused, you start repeating yourself and you are not sure what day of the week it is. I can see why it was used as a torture and still is, allegedly.
	The last time I intervened, which was yesterday, I was thwarted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who everyone has been praising today, for reasons I cannot understand. He may have been nice today, but he was not so nice to me yesterday. Noble Lords may remember that, just as I got up to make a modest intervention, he got up to the Dispatch Box in a slightly atypically aggressive way to try to conclude the debate. I had to come in afterward, by which time I was flustered and not my usual self and did not make all the points that I wanted to make. That is why I am glad to be able to contribute to the debate on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, which I think is the best of the bunch, if I may say so.
	The one thing that I did say yesterday was in relation to flexibility for the Boundary Commission, particularly for England. I would like to elaborate on that. I mentioned that Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales were used to being given specific numbers, particularly minimum numbers, but in relation to England, if we say a rigid number, that will make it very difficult for the Boundary Commission to fulfil its task, particularly where it is constrained to plus or minus 5 per cent-we will come to that later.
	It will be very difficult for the commission to get it exactly right, to go around the country trying to fit in, in an artificial way, a specific number of constituencies of a specific size and, at the same time, corresponding with natural boundaries wherever possible, so that we do not end up with constituencies which have one part on one side of the Tyne, or whatever river, and another part on the other. We saw it in Glasgow. Noble friends from Scotland will recall how the Boundary Commission for Scotland was concerned about constituencies which straddled the Clyde. I hope that we will give consideration at some point, not to specifying the exact number, whether 650, 640 or whatever, but to giving some flexibility to the Boundary Commission.
	Notwithstanding all that, I think, with respect to the others, that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is the best of the bunch because maintaining the status quo will mean the least disruption for existing Members of Parliament. As I was saying earlier, these Members of Parliament have only recently been elected and I must say, having been in the other place for 26 years and out of it for only five, I think that some of those in the last intake are the best we have seen for generations. I am sure that noble Lords who have been in the other place will agree that it has been a super intake. Even the Conservative intake has been full of talented people; the Labour intake certainly has. I will leave the Liberal Democrats out of this.

Lord Kinnock: Everybody else does.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: As my noble friend says, everyone else does.
	These Members of Parliament are just beginning to find their feet, to get to know their constituencies really well, they are beginning to settle in and they face a major disruption. They could face minor alterations, as we are all used to; we accept that from time to time. As my noble friend Lord Anderson said, after every three Parliaments you accepted that there would be a relatively minor review and that was all part of the job of being a Member of Parliament. However, to have just entered Parliament and to face a review which, because Parliament is being reduced to 600, will inevitably be extensive, is really quite destabilising.
	I think it was my noble friend Lord Rooker who accidentally stumbled across Conservative MPs being briefed to prepare for this. He assumed that others would be doing the same and I am sure he is absolutely right to assume that Members of Parliament are preoccupied about this. It is not just that they will face competition from candidates from other parties-they first have to get selected for these new constituencies, and that is quite destabilising.
	I want to speak about a boundary review that I went through. I was elected in 1979 for South Ayrshire, which extended to 700 square miles-a large, rural constituency. People think of Labour MPs as representing small urban constituencies. I represented this large, rural constituency which stretched from Muirkirk in the north to Ballantrae in the south. It would take me two hours to drive across the constituency and I did not drive all that slowly. I had a huge variety of areas to represent. Muirkirk is an old mining area and there is a little village outside Muirkirk, called Glenbuck, which was the home of Bill Shankly and Bob Shankly and which had a fantastic football team, the Glenbuck Cherrypickers, probably one of the best known football teams of its time.
	Moving on a little, we find Auchinleck and Cumnock, both mining towns. I chose Cumnock as the territorial designation for my title. Cumnock is where James Keir Hardie lived for a while and is now buried-the cradle of the Labour movement. Mauchline was one of the places connected with Robert Burns-Poosie Nansie's is there-and, ironically, also of the Leader of the House, who, sadly, is not with us today. I was hoping to be able to pay tribute to him and his home in Mauchline, where I used to represent him and look after his interests extremely well. He does not often return the compliment and look after my interests, but I certainly looked after his. I represented all these-the villages of Coylton and Dalrymple, of Patna and Dalmellington in the Doon Valley, of Maybole and Crosshill, between which two I now live. Maybole was the ancient capital of Carrick, a fantastic town, and there is also the seaside town of Girvan. Any Glaswegians here, or people from the central belt of Scotland will know that they used to go, "doon the water" to the lovely seaside resort of Girvan.
	All of this was 700 square miles and then the Boundary Commission added another 100 square miles-I had to represent 800 square miles after the Boundary Commission. Annbank and Mossblown came in, two mining areas, as well as Kincaidston and Belmont, parts of the outskirts of Ayr. Why am I telling you this?

Lord Kinnock: A maiden speech, obviously.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: A maiden speech, yes. I am taking noble Lords on a tour and I hope that some noble Lords will join me on the tour because, in all these towns, I had to have surgeries. In poor areas, the bus services were not very good. My constituents could not come to me; I had to go to them. I once talked to constituents in Cumnock about Girvan and they had never been to Girvan. They had never in their lives visited another part of my constituency. It was astonishing. They had been to Mallorca, but that is another story. They had not travelled, because the bus services were not particularly good, so I had to go there.
	Before the reorganisation in my constituency I had 20 surgeries every month. I took them in the morning on each Friday and Saturday and I moved from area to area. After the reorganisation they went up to 24 and going and sitting in a surgery is only part of the work-you then go back and write up all your notes, decide how to follow it through, acknowledge to the constituent that you taken it up. That was the revised constituency before my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke-it was not all her responsibility, but she was the Minister-brought in the second reorganisation of constituencies that I was involved in.
	We managed to keep all the boundaries within Ayrshire. We had a big fight, by the way, to keep five constituencies in Ayrshire. My noble friend Lord Reid was very keen to move part of Ayrshire into Lanarkshire for the constituency boundaries.

Baroness Ford: Outrageous.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Outrageous, as my noble friend rightly says. We managed to keep four constituencies in Ayrshire out of the original five, but that meant that of five Labour MPs, one had to go, because we were only going to fight four constituencies, and that is why I ended up here. I was the longest serving, the oldest and I thought, the time is now right for me to give up, after 26 years representing that area. I gave up and, thankfully from my point of view, if not from anyone else's, I was asked to come here.
	That, I hope, illustrates some of the workload of Member of Parliament. When I got down to Westminster as an MP, as I said earlier, we had no mobile phones, no e-mail and the burden grew over the years. I remember talking to Tom Oswald, MP for Central Edinburgh-he used to keep a book with all his letters. He wrote down who he got the letter from, when he received it, who he wrote back to and he wrote all his letters in longhand, put them in an envelope, put on a stamp that he paid for himself and sent off the letter. That was what a Member of Parliament did at the time.
	Things have changed dramatically since then, but someone told me recently that one of the things we should take account of in the workload of a Member of Parliament is the increase in work due to government initiatives. It is certainly the case that Governments keep thinking of things which involve Members of Parliament in more work. They keep changing things. At the moment the NHS in England is being changed dramatically. I am sure that that will create huge additional burdens for English Members of Parliament. Governments, when they change constituencies, especially when they reduce the number and increase the size, ought to think of the workload that they are putting on to these Members of Parliament.
	My noble friend Lord Kinnock, former leader of our party, is still with us. It is amazing that he is keeping awake and making such useful interventions all through the night. With his sagacity he put my noble friend Lord Anderson and me on the Front Bench. I mentioned earlier the importance of the work of Opposition Front-Benchers, doing this with very little support at the same time as being a constituency Member of Parliament and everything that that involves. A number of noble Lords have argued that the number of Ministers needs to be reduced if the size of Parliament is to be reduced, otherwise the power of the Executive becomes ever greater-and it has increased. We heard earlier not just about the number on the payroll but the number of Ministers who are not paid. Everyone seems to have a PPS. When we started, as my noble friend will remember, only Secretaries of State had PPSs; then Ministers of State got PPSs; now I understand that Under-Secretaries of State have PPSs.

Lord Kinnock: PPSs have PPSs.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Yes, we will have PPS squared.
	On a more serious point, in one of the replies to an earlier debate, it was said that in future Ministers might come not just from the House of Commons, but more might come from the House of Lords, or elsewhere. The implication was that there could be Ministers who were in neither House of Parliament. Will the Minister clarify whether that is the Government's policy? That would mean the start of a move towards the separation of powers and the movement of the Executive away from the legislature. That would be a very retrograde step, but it may be something that the Government are considering. The Conservatives or, even more keenly, the Liberal Democrats may have that in mind.
	That separation of powers also raises a question. A number of Members have raised the question of the comparison of the number of elected Members in Britain with the USA or France. We have dealt with the federal aspect of how in the United States of America, every state has its own Senate, members of the House of Representatives, Governor and so on. My noble friend Lord Rooker gave us the exact figure for the number of elected representatives per head in the United States compared with the United Kingdom. However, the separation of powers is also important. In the United Kingdom, Ministers have to be MPs as well and they have the workload of Members of Parliament.

Lord Knight of Weymouth: I should point out that I am the last person to have attended full Cabinet who was a Member of neither House. It was a disaster and during the period when the two parties opposite hatched their deal. I attended full Cabinet on the Monday while the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives were talking to each other about forming a coalition. It is not a course of action that I would recommend.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I am grateful to my noble friend. That was not the only disaster happening at the time, as we know.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: There are some historic precedents. I think of CFG Masterman who, in about 1915, as a Liberal at the time, was in the Cabinet but was not a Member of Parliament. I also believe that for a short time Patrick Gordon Walker was a member of the Cabinet but not in either House.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: They are not only unhappy precedents; they are unusual. I do not want them to become the rule as that would be a retrograde step. I have spoken for longer than I intended. Fortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is here. He will probably be watching me on his computer and will have switched me off after five minutes. I am grateful to my noble friends for being here and for not switching me off.

Lord Kinnock: My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Kennedy proposing that the figure of 600 should be replaced by 650. I only wish that it had been possible for my noble friend, within the realms of order, to have added as a starting point the words, "for thinking through the changes proposed for the elections of Members of the House of Commons". That is the force of the argument behind the previous two amendments, and certainly the force of argument behind this one-650, the current number, as a starting point.
	That is not a defence of the status quo-not a small "c" conservative attitude-but a defence that is based on a plea to the Government still to reconsider their proposal in order to give this House, the other House and wider realms of interest a proper opportunity to think how we should determine the number of Members of Parliament, in conjunction with dispassionate independent bodies such as the Boundary Commission, so that we absolutely guarantee the independence of the conclusion and the opportunity for public intercession that has characterised the boundary formation of our parliamentary constituencies since 1949, updated with some sagacious rules that were established in, I think, 1986.
	The guiding principle that I seek to recommend to the Government, if they were to take advantage of this amendment, would be the fairly fundamental management recommendation that structure should be a function of purpose. That maxim should apply to business and to organisations and administrations of every kind, because if those who are responsible for making decisions-especially about organisation, reorganisation, reform or equipping for the future-have to accept the discipline of making clear from the outset the purpose that they intend for an institution, a stratum of management, a department or a new system of local government or of representation anywhere, they are obliged to say why they are arriving at the recommendation that they put to the corporate, democratic or voluntary organisation, or, dare I say it, to some segment of the big society. If that principle is applied to Parliament, it requires only a very small change from structure being the function of purpose to Members being a function of purpose.
	There is some difficulty in establishing what purpose is and should be fulfilled by Members of Parliament now and for recognisable years into the future. In this, we have some guidance from within this House. Your Lordships' own Select Committee on the Constitution, comprising four Conservative, four Labour, two Liberal Democrat and two Cross-Bench Peers, reported towards the back end of last year on their deliberations on the Bill. This has been referred to before in the Committee, but I think it bears repetition for the sake of accuracy:
	"The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee heard evidence from bodies such as the Hansard Society, Democratic Audit and Unlock Democracy"-
	all organisations of unquestionable repute and detachment-
	"who argued that the choice of 600 was arbitrary, lacking a rationale and, in any event, put the cart before the horse. It was argued that a more sensible approach would have been firstly to review the functions of the House of Commons and secondly to form a view as to the appropriate number of MPs required to perform those functions".
	The only addition that I would have made, had I enjoyed the honour of sitting on that committee, would have been, "taking into account the perpetual nature of change affecting the work of Members of Parliament". That would simply have reflected, although I do not intend to dwell on this, my 25 years of experience as a Member of the other House, representing, at a time of radical and on occasions desperate industrial change, a constituency that had the characteristic of many former coalmining constituencies and far-flung communities inside that constituency-in short, combining the problems of the inner city and separated only by the hills in between.
	The conclusion that was drawn by the Select Committee on the basis of these representations from the objective interest shown by the Hansard Society, Democratic Audit and Unlock Democracy was:
	"We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs".
	Could there be a stronger condemnation from an all-party committee, which recently looked in a focused and explicit way at the legislation before the House? It was not a Back-Bench Labour committee or a trade union branch but, I repeat, a committee with a balance of Conservative and Labour Members of this House, two Liberal Democrats and two Cross-Benchers who arrived at that conclusion.
	Confronted with the arguments, the Minister has given us courteous responses, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has been as opaque as he has been courteous. He has told us that the manifestos of the parties that now form the coalition had "a theme". It is difficult to accept a community, a commonality or even a similarity of theme when one of the coalition partners wanted a radical volcano of reform in our electoral systems leading to a reduction in the number of Members of the House of Commons, one contingent upon the other, with PR and more devolution, especially in England.
	With local government reform, the coalition could offer a justification for having just 500 Members of the House of Commons. I would probably have argued with that figure, but at least there was a cogent package of arguments to present in support of the idea of reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 500. In contrast, we had an announcement followed by a manifesto commitment from the then leader of the Conservative Party, now the Prime Minister, in the midst of the scandal and the justifiable outrage about the abuse of public support for MPs, that one way to combat this excess would be to cut the number of Members of the House of Commons by 10 per cent, taking the number down to 585.
	For the life of me, I can see only the merest scintilla of a theme being pursued, and it is that two parties wanted, to entirely different extents, in entirely different contexts and on entirely different bases of argument-one party wanted profound constitutional change, the other an arbitrary and populist declaration in the middle of outrage about scandal-to reduce the number of Members in the House of Commons. I do not call that a theme; I call it barely a coincidence of convenience. It is a long way from being a theme.
	In a later contribution, the Minister said that no one has a perfect answer for the size of the Commons. Of course, that is absolutely right-as he said to the committee, there is no "magic science" to any of it-but that should be the overture to a whole opera of consideration and consultation: trying to find someone or something that is nearer an objective measurement of what Members of Parliament now do and will do into the electronic future. Instead, we have had the arbitrary conclusion to plump for the figure of 600, despite the absence of any objective rationale, in the words of the Select Committee of this House.
	We have had a response from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, which was courteously put but again repetitive, that it is a question of judgment. Because there is no perfect answer, it is a question of judgment. That, too, is absolutely right. So let us enter an objective consideration that has been put several times in this Committee but has still not received a cogent response. The consideration that I would put, among many others that we could cite, is that the number of Members of Parliament since 1950 has risen by 4 per cent, and the number of electors by 25 per cent.
	In any other sphere, if you were to get an increase in what I shall call, in neglect of my sisters, manpower of 4 per cent-and those people had to deal with 25 per cent potential greater demand-you might commend them on their extra productivity and on the reduction in marginal unit costs. That might be acceptable, except that the marginal unit costs of having Members of Parliament have gone up and up. One reason is because there is this disparity between the rise in the number of Members of Parliament and the much greater rise not only in the numbers to which they must be accountable and for which they must be responsible, but, as others have relayed at length, in the huge increase in workload.
	I am tempted to replicate some of my noble friends' reports, but I shall not except to refer to one point made by my noble friend Lady Mallalieu. I knew her father, Curly Mallalieu-he was a dear comrade and friend of mine. He was a war hero and a man of great distinction, a brilliant sportsman and marvellous journalist and great company. He was also a very good Minister. I came into the House of Commons in 1970, together with my noble friend Lord Prescott, on the same day, and we served with Curly for four years. He was a fastidious constituency Member of Parliament who did surgeries once a month and answered all letters. He had a very high reputation.
	However, that was at a time, as my noble friend Lord Prescott and others of our generation will testify, when total constituency engagement in the so-called welfare officer role was not only hardly undertaken by the generation before us but was regarded with contempt by the generation before us. I was upbraided by a dear friend for doing constituency work in the Library in a House of Commons in which having a desk was a rarity-a real mark of the Whip's privilege. It was a long time before I got a desk, and when I did so it was in a room that I shared, to my experience's huge advantage, with the now noble Lord, Lord Bannside, who now sits on these Benches. That was the state of affairs then.
	What we encountered was unacceptable to our generation's commitment to the service of the community. We were told that we were there to represent the constituency in Parliament, not Parliament in the constituency. Could there be any more categorical difference after the passage of 41 years? Of course not, which is why I reinforce the point about the increase in numbers in the electorate with a massive alteration in expectations of Members of Parliament of servants of constituents-I believe rightly.
	That is quite apart from the wider dimensions of the contact with Members of Parliament that is now facilitated by electronic communication as well as by the fluency of the electorate, the higher levels of education and the greater willingness to engage in the increased demands put on Members of Parliament. That is without looking at any external dimension or the increased workload on Parliament, about which everyone in my view rightly complains, which arises from massive programmes of legislation that have emanated from Governments successively over the last quarter of a century and which show no sign of pausing, slowing or being diluted under the present Government.
	The workload has gone up, in quantity and probably in expectation if not in quality, and the place has changed. However, without taking account of those realities, which are not mathematical exactitudes but nevertheless tangible changes of huge dimension, how can a Government arrive at the conclusion that the number of Members of Parliament should be cut from 650 to 600? There is no objective basis and no rationale other than perhaps the very feckless rationale that I suggested earlier: that 600 has the advantage of not being 585, which was the number that the Conservative Party first thought of and which would have been unacceptable in the course of coalition deliberations and negotiation of agreement. It appears that that is the last negotiation that anyone in this Government will enter into.
	I make this final point in recommending that we stay with 650. We should start from where we are and have a process of consultation and deliberation so that it is possible for the Government and this Parliament to arrive at a figure that reflects the nature of the work of a dutiful Member of Parliament in 2011, 2015 and beyond. What will happen if a change is introduced that does not secure consent by negotiation in this House of negotiation, which is capable of operation only through usual channels and where the absence of a guillotine is a product of the absence of a guaranteed majority? That is the arrangement that has been sustained and is sustainable because of the nature of this House. The Government are contriving an unseen and unannounced but massive reform of the House of Lords in the most retrograde way possible.
	This has been a House of negotiation and arduously won agreement-a House in which Governments have not used and not been able to use the final, conclusive, clumsy and heavy result of overwhelming majority to get their way. If on this very significant constitutional Bill, which determines how the citizens of this country are represented and governed, this Government are not willing to take account of objective realities and requests for rationales that have been submitted by detached, independent and respected bodies, let alone by Members from this side of the House, they really are a Government who have become tunnel visioned and who will pay the price, although perhaps not in this Bill.
	During the passage of this Bill, loyalties have been relied on and understandings taken for granted, not on these but on the Government's Benches. Tangible and in many cases terrible changes have been proposed on benefits, on the volcano in the English National Health Service and on the termination of the education maintenance allowance. On those and a legion of other changes, such as in housing benefit and council housing tenure, Members of this House on the Cross Benches and on the Government's Back Benches who are exercised about the difficulties that will be inflicted on people who are virtually powerless to resist these changes will want some recompense for suspending their judgment and going through the Lobby with the Government on this Bill.
	As this Parliament moves into the next 12 and 24 months, the Government will really earn the penalty that they deserve for breaking the valued and sustainable conventions of this House and not listening to arguments but for sticking to an arbitrary figure that is unsupported by cogent argument and for reducing the size of the House of Commons because of their dependence on welding two disparate parts of constitutional change together in a way that has been entirely unnecessary. They can have their referendum, as my noble friends on the Front Bench have made abundantly clear, and on the date on which they want to hold it, but they cannot justify ramming through this House that undertaking in the coalition agreement at the same time as undertaking a course of action that will earn them for ever the reputation of a gerrymandering Government.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: It was good of the Leader of the House to pop in during our debate to see how things were moving, because, as we all know, it is not his shift. It was a very special favour to us that he came to see what was happening. I agree with my noble friend Lord Kinnock that the basis of what we are debating is the negotiation or lack of it on these proposals, and that the only negotiation that is relevant to this debate generally appears to have been that between the two parties of the coalition. As a result of that Faustian pact, or whatever else one calls it, the Government are unwilling to listen to argument, to unblock the usual channels or to make any concessions. They fear, Samson-like, that the pillars of the temple will crumble if they make the smallest concession.
	I listened with great pleasure to my noble friend Lord Foulkes, as I always do. He gave us a rather joyful odyssey around his constituency. I confess that I was tempted to ask whether I might join him at some stage. I was listening to him describe all those wonderful places with strange-sounding names and wondering whether I could better him by taking him around my old city and around wonderful places such as Llansamlet, Craig-cefn-parc, Ynysforgan and Llangyfelach, and all these equally wonderful places with strange-sounding names but with a wonderful community. What impressed me during the time I had the pleasure to be there was that it was, indeed, a community. In the city of Swansea, we pride ourselves on being a series of villages held together by gossip-and the gossip is enormous. There is a real strength of feeling between the various parts of the village. It is something that I enjoyed. Of the trio who were on the Front Bench and appointed by my noble friend, I always thought of my noble friend Lord Foulkes as Mr Nice. There was the danger of having Amendments 61, 62 and 63 considered together, but they were quite properly severed.
	I recall that my noble friend Lord Foulkes talked of his experience on the Intelligence and Security Committee and of what he learnt about sleep deprivation. When he said that, I was wondering whether I had last spoken yesterday or today and, indeed, whether I am in serious danger of repeating myself at this stage. It is what people do when they are subject to sleep deprivation. I will go on because I seem to recall that I spoke on Amendment 61 only to make the point that I did not think it appropriate to mention a particular number. I apologise to my noble friend Lady McDonagh but I did not think that 630 was an appropriate number. Equally, I did not speak in respect of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Snape because I had already made that point on the earlier one.
	I feel emboldened, however, to speak in respect of the current amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Kennedy for this good reason: that the onus is surely on those who want to make change to make the case for that change. This change, which is having an electoral quotient of 75,000 and of having 600 seats, might, or might not, be justified. However, what the Government have clearly not done is made any serious attempt at all during the course of this debate or earlier to justify those particular figures. What puzzles, surprises and, indeed, saddens me is that the Conservative Party has departed from its normal principles and, at a time when it talks about the big society and, airily, about localism, it seems very ready to sacrifice community on the alter of a mathematical formula.
	Some colleagues have already mentioned the carve-up of Africa at the Congress of Berlin and those straight lines that separated community. For example, the Ewe community is partly in Togo and partly in Ghana. I do not think that my noble friend Lord Boateng is here but I would invite him to go with me around the borders of Ghana or Uganda looking at the way in which tribes were separated. I think that it would not be appropriate for me to go seriatim around the borders of various African countries.
	Certainly, the normal pattern of Conservative thought-which is very distinguished in our history-is to have any change broadened down from precedent to precedent and to ask for an explanation for each change.
	I recall Lord Hailsham's marvellous book. I already quoted him yesterday or today-I cannot remember which because of sleep deprivation. I recommend the book to every colleague. It was written in about 1948 and was called The Case for Conservatism. How well he put it in this book that, for Conservatives, politics was a second best activity. It prevents the nasties doing things and tries to keep the ship afloat-even if one did not have a particular destination. He had a wonderful sentence about the Conservatives:
	"The simplest among them prefer fox-hunting-the wisest religion".
	Politics was a second-best activity, which is light years away from the ideological drive of the Conservatives today, followed tamely by the Liberal Democrats, who seem to be ready to sacrifice all their principles so long as they can follow up the legacy of Lloyd George and the unfinished business of the Liberals from before the First World War.
	I am certainly ready to listen to all the arguments. I am far more ready to accept-as I have indicated-the amendment of my noble friend for the 650 because that is the status quo and because no serious attempt has been made to say why the status quo should be altered. Indeed, there is a serious argument, which I shall seek to deploy, for increasing the number of seats because of the increased workload of Members of Parliament. How do we define the job? This was the point made by my noble friend who has now left, the distinguished doctor. The job of a Member of Parliament has clearly altered very substantially over the years. Some colleagues have boasted about the fact that they entered the other place in 1964 or 1979. Wait for it: I entered the other place in 1966. I recall being asked at a selection conference what was my trade union. I said that it was FSBAA. Of course no one was prepared to admit ignorance as to what this particular trade union was. It was in fact the Foreign Service Branch A Association. Anyway, I was able to get over that hurdle as a result of my membership of a distinguished trade union in the foreign service.
	At that time the world was very different indeed. One was able to have a career in addition to being a Member of Parliament. There were some very heavy and eminent lawyers in the House at that time. I was a member of the chambers of Elwyn-Jones, who became Lord Elwyn-Jones, and of Sam Silkin-Lord Silkin-whose PPS I became from 1974 to 1979. They were able to have serious legal practices at the same time as being Members of the House. There was a wonderful piece in Elwyn-Jones's autobiography, at the time when he had prosecuted at Nuremberg, going to his seat of West Ham and being told by the good constituents of West Ham, "Oh, don't bother to come for another year or so. You can just do that job in Nuremberg". He feared that he might be going on in the caravanserai to the prosecution of Japanese war criminals and his good constituents of West Ham would have been very happy for him to spend a year or two there. I recall that my noble friend Lady Mallalieu almost followed him in that seat, when we were both in the same chambers.
	At that time, there were eminent members of the Bar and eminent businessmen, who were able to carry on with their position in the House of Commons part time. That would not be possible nowadays. About that time, I recall that Duncan Sandys was alleged to have said to someone who wrote to him from his constituency in Streatham, "I am Streatham's representative in Parliament and not Parliament's representative in Streatham". A story was going around about one of the Aitkens, who was a Member of Parliament, and who apparently replied to every constituent who wrote him a letter in the following terms: "Thank you very much for your letter. With people like you, England has nothing to fear".
	Alas, perhaps the world has changed. Members of Parliament do not have a pathway to Parliament through being eminent lawyers or having had a substantial career outside. Indeed, it is very difficult for parties to find an Attorney-General in the House of Commons because of the pressures of being in the House and the difficulty of finding a lawyer with sufficient standing in the legal community. I accept that, at the moment, the Conservative Party has a sufficiently heavy lawyer but it is becoming increasingly difficult because of the pressures of Parliament to find people to fill the post. Nowadays, the pathway to Parliament is normally through being a research officer for another MP. People come along without what Denis Healey would call a hinterland-someone who comes with a career from outside that they are able to use when in Parliament.
	Nowadays one is expected to be a social worker. There is a deluge of e-mails. The expectations of the constituents have changed and woe betide any Member of Parliament who tries to adopt the Duncan Sandys, or Aitken, approach in replying to their constituents. Indeed, there is, in my judgment, a real danger of the House of Commons being somewhat parochial. This would be exacerbated if we have these regular boundary revisions. Members of Parliament are analogous to those 435 members of the House of Representatives, who are effectively in a state of perpetual electioneering. If there is to be this recasting, like with Lego bricks-where one is often putting things together in a fairly haphazard way and certainly not looking at the importance of community-different building blocks being put together every five years or so, it is surely only natural that every Member of Parliament would be looking over his shoulder at how he can cultivate that part that will come into his constituency.
	It will make it very difficult indeed to find Members of Parliament who are prepared to travel, apart from coming to London. I have had the privilege of being on the executive of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and, at different times, the Inter-Parliamentary Union for over 30 years and, at times, boxing and coxing with my noble friend Lord Foulkes. It is more and more difficult to find Members of Parliament who are prepared to go abroad with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Why? MPs are in a state of perpetual electioneering, looking over their shoulders to ask, "Have I done well? Am I feeding the great beast? Am I giving the constituents that which they want?". I think that it will be a sadder Parliament if there are people who do not have the experience of the outside world and instead only those who are always going back to their constituents, trying to be glorified social workers. Some will ask: what is the job description? How do we explain that a Member of Parliament should be prepared to be a member of a Select Committee, should be able to learn about foreign climes and do all these things? It will not happen. If there are these regular changes, the pressures on Members of Parliament will mean that they will be in a state of perpetual electioneering.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: We have had the benefit of two distinguished and prominent Welshmen discussing, for 40 minutes, maintaining the status quo. I expect it from the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, because he led the opposition to devolution against his own party in 1979, when, alongside the noble and sleeping Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, I attempted to introduce devolution. I forget where the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, was on that referendum. I suspect that he was with the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock. Therefore, we have heard from two noble Lords who fought against devolution for Wales-and we in Wales will never forget it-on the basis that the Welsh Assembly would be dominated by Welsh speakers.

Lord Kinnock: Rubbish!

Lord Thomas of Gresford: I will never forget it. That was the basis of the noble Lord's opposition to devolution. It took his own Government at a later time to introduce devolution to Wales. Here we are talking about maintaining the status quo with 650 seats without any reference to the effect on the workload of Members of Parliament in Wales or Scotland. Therefore, instead of talking all this rubbish-he knows that it is rubbish-perhaps the noble Lord would spend another 10 or 15 minutes assisting the people of Wales by addressing that issue.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I shall respond very readily but shall perhaps not take as long as the quarter of an hour that the noble Lord suggests I take. My opposition to Welsh devolution between 1974 and 1979 was on the same basis as my opposition to change now-that is, that the onus is on those who wish to bring about change to make the case for such change. It would probably detain this Committee unduly if I were to go on at length about the reasons why I and the so-called gang of six took the view that we did. However, as a former elapsed political scientist, I took the view that anyone who wished to have a quasi-federal system in a unitary state would need to think through very carefully questions such as what the natural stopping point would be. I think that the slippery slope-

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords-

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Perhaps I may finish my argument and then the noble Lord can come back. I made the point, which I think is very valid, that with a quasi-federal state there would be no logical stopping point. Therefore, at that time I personally became closer to the Liberal policy of moving more closely towards federalism. I felt that popular pressures would lead us inexorably along that road and possibly to independence for Wales. I was convinced that the people of Wales did not want that and my view was vindicated in the 1979 referendum, when the people of Wales, by a majority of four to one, rejected what the noble Lord was putting forward. However, I changed my mind.
	Perhaps I may also say in passing that I was never guilty of using the Welsh language argument. Although I am monoglot, I have immense pride in the Welsh language, so long as language is not used as a divisive matter, as it is in Belgium. Therefore, I tried to deploy serious and reasonable arguments at that time, and on balance I was convinced-Mrs Thatcher was my tutor in that-about the centralisation which came about in the 1980s during the years of Thatcherism. I thought it only proper that my country, Wales, should be safeguarded so far as possible, and therefore, although I did not become a strong advocate, in my judgment the balance had changed. I supported the argument and voted yes in the 1997 referendum.

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way but the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, mentioned the Welsh language and my noble friend has just referred to it. I find it rather strange that there is this attack on my noble friend and on my noble friend Lord Kinnock. I well remember going to a Welsh Labour Party conference in Llandudno at the height of the devolution debate, with my noble friend Lord Kinnock and I having to sit on either of my noble friend Lady Kinnock, because she was our interpreter. Given that experience, I would find it rather strange if my noble friend Lord Kinnock had some antipathy towards Welsh speakers.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Absolutely. I could write a book about our experiences at that time. I could speak not just for the quarter of an hour that the noble Lord has invited me to speak but at great length. Out of deference to the Committee, I shall not do that, but I would contend that the arguments that I deployed at that time, along with the so-called gang of six, were reasonable and rational. I changed my position in the 1980s for equally rational and reasonable reasons, and I certainly never used, and never have used, arguments of any antipathy towards the Welsh language, of which I am immensely proud, having chosen to go not to Oxbridge but to the University of Wales. I am proud to be an honorary fellow of the two universities in my city of Swansea. I am a Deputy Lieutenant of Swansea and a very proud Welshman. I would certainly defend that against any suggestion from the noble Lord opposite.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: The noble Lord is as reactionary today on this issue as he was in 1979 in that a moment ago he accepted that he was wrong on that. While the rest of us were fighting for devolution, for Wales and for the Welsh language, he was on the other side.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I do not accept that I was wrong. I was right at the time, and I believe I was right because the position that I and my noble friend took was mightily endorsed by the people of Wales in the referendum by a majority of four to one. The facts speak for themselves. While the noble Lord and his cabal were speaking for just a small portion of the people of Wales, I and my noble friend Lord Kinnock represented real Welsh opinion at that time, just as we represented the movement of Welsh opinion in 1997. Therefore, I think that we were much better barometers and indicators of Welsh opinion than was the noble Lord at that time or, indeed, now. It is hardly irrational or unreasonable to suggest that those who wish to make a change should have the onus of adducing the evidence for that change, and evidence we have had none.

Lord Touhig: I am grateful to my noble friend but is he not encouraged that this is the ninth day of the debate and the noble Lord is the first Welsh Liberal Democrat to have said a single word about Wales? When we get to the amendments that seek to protect the number of Welsh seats and to ensure that Welsh speakers have representation as part of the United Kingdom, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, will be in the Lobby with us.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: I hate making a partisan point but when I see Welsh Liberal Democrats I am reminded of the saying, "Those who are about to die salute you". I shall be brief, although I think that I have about seven minutes left of the quarter of an hour that I have been allowed by the noble Lord. I ask: why the change? It is clearly not for financial reasons, because the saving would be very small. Indeed, the argument for an increase can be made, but certainly the arguments for the changes which the Government have put forward have not been made at all. I believe that I and my noble friends Lord Kinnock and Lord Foulkes have remained consistent, and I am waiting for the arguments to be put for the status quo. I am not wedded to any particular number but it is surely hardly unreasonable to ask those who want to make a change to adduce evidence for it and to make the case. Therefore, if my noble friend takes this matter to a vote, I shall be ready to support him in the Lobby.

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I rise to speak to this amendment not having spoken before in any of the debates about the number of Members of Parliament that there should be and what their role ought to be once they are elected. I speak now because I have listened to three Ministers over the past however many hours, each struggling to identify why they have come up with what they have in the Bill. In my view, none of them has been able to address the issue adequately.
	I was extremely bewildered when I first heard the Leader of the House. He was quite belligerent and aggressive, and actually quite offensive to some of my colleagues. I could not understand it. Then I heard the noble Lord, Lord McNally, sort of lose it a bit earlier, which I put down to lack of sleep and other things. I have also read in Hansard what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, said on previous occasions when I have not been in the Chamber. During all those debates, I worked out why they cannot tell us, and it is because they have come to this decision from very different perspectives. Because of that, they really cannot reveal to the Committee why and how they have done it.
	The noble Lord, Lord McNally, gave some of the game away when he said that he wanted fairer votes. We can argue about what fair votes are, and indeed we did so when considering the first part of the Bill. But I do not think that we will ever hear the Leader of the House say that the rationale is that he wants fairer votes so that people are able to feel that their votes are valued because of the changes that are taking place. That has absolutely not been a Conservative argument at all in any of these debates or, indeed, in the lead-up to their manifesto. Those of us who were in the other place when the current Prime Minister was making his arguments about reducing the number of people in the House of Commons know that he simply wanted to reduce costs and that that was a sufficient rationale to reduce the number of Members of Parliament. I find that a difficult argument, partly because of some of the arguments that my noble friend Lord Anderson has been making. He is right to say that, 40 or 50 years ago, people came to the other place knowing that they would not be able to manage on the inadequate salary and that therefore they would be doing another job.
	I come to this place with a strange history. For 23 years, I was a Member of the other place for the constituency of North West Durham. It so happens that, before me, my father was also the Member for North West Durham for 23 years. Uniquely, I took the seat that my father had held, but it was not a matter of inheritance. It is important to say that in this House. But it means that I have 46 years of personal experience of representation of a single constituency. I think that this experience helps explain why there are differences and trouble on the Front Bench.
	Before my father came here, he had been the head of a primary school, and he actually came to Westminster on a lower salary than he had been getting as a primary head teacher. There were no expenses and he lived in extremely grotty circumstances in a B&B in Victoria. My mum and I were never allowed to go there because he was too ashamed of it. Indeed, in those days he was one of a minority of Members of Parliament who returned home to their constituencies every weekend. Before that, it had been the norm for Members of Parliament not to return to their constituencies every weekend. I remember great stories about Barbara Castle going to her constituency once a month-doing meetings on the Friday, doing the party meeting on Friday night and then going to the market in Blackburn on Saturday morning before she got on the train to depart. She would do that once a month and it was seen as perfectly normal and absolutely what Members of Parliament did.
	One of the reasons why my father gave up being an MP was that he knew his methods of doing things were outdated and had to go and that they needed a new broom. I was lucky enough to be selected and then elected in that constituency. One of the reasons why I decided it was time for me to go is that it was becoming clear that you had to start using things like Facebook and Twitter. I know that some of my noble friends are happy doing that but I was not. That was not what I was comfortable with and I was not going to be able to provide that service for my constituents. But it was the way that things were going, and it is the sort of thing that constituents now expect. They expect the full attention of their Member of Parliament.
	I wonder if that is actually part of what is in the mind of the Prime Minister. I have listened with increasing dismay to the Prime Minister talking about the need for Members of Parliament to be cheaper. He has suggested that Members of Parliaments' wages should come down and insisted that Ministers' wages should do so. It is almost as if the only people who should be involved in public service are those who have private means. If you cannot obtain private means in any other way, you might find them by working in business or in other areas while you are a Member of Parliament. I want to be sure that no Minister thinks that that is the right way to proceed-or perhaps they do think that that is the right way to proceed. It may be that some of the Executive think that there should be a return to the time when Members of Parliament attended Parliament and saw their role in the legislature very differently from their responsibilities in the constituency.
	My dad rarely held surgeries but he went to local football matches every week. They knew him very well there, and they always knew that they could see him if Stanley, Crook or Tow Law were playing. He would be there, and of course he would also preach in chapel twice every Sunday. He would go round all the chapels in the constituency. They always knew that he would be somewhere at the weekend where they could find him. They say to me now what a wonderful and accessible Member of Parliament he was. But the job as it was then is very different from the job as it is seen and experienced now. He used to handwrite all his letters, as someone has mentioned, and the stamps on the letters he posted were paid for out of his own salary. I still go to houses where they show me the envelope and letter than Dad had written to them. I went to see one lady and she actually had to get me to translate a letter. He had obviously been in a great hurry and this letter was not written in his usual careful hand.
	The role of an MP has changed, but are we content that it is the right role now? There has been much written during and since the expenses scandal, with several leaders in newspapers saying that the MP's role should be looked at again and there should be greater consideration of it. I think that it is time to do that. I think that it is time to do that and then to legislate. My concern and my real fear is that there is a hidden agenda because Ministers cannot be honest with us about why they want to reduce numbers. I believe the motivation of the Liberal Democrats is different. I intervened on a colleague earlier but I do not think that the Minister was here, so I will repeat what I was hinting at. If you support proportional representation you need to break the link of representation of a place and a community. While that link persists a form of voting for one person to be the representative has got to be there. Many Liberal Democrats want to move away from that, and I understand why they do. I do not want to move from the reality of having to represent a place because I think that it is a discipline which brings an accountability that simply does not exist in other countries.
	I believe that the role of the MP should be to represent Parliament back to the constituency as well as to represent the constituency to Parliament. Going back week in, week out even when you are a Minister is absolutely invaluable. When I would go home to Crook they had seen the telly, they had seen what people said, they had seen Prime Minister's Questions and they wanted to chat about it. I had the most wonderful constituents. They were never aggressive or over-demanding and they did not think that I was there every week. Although I would go back every weekend, when they saw me they would think that I was there because something was wrong. None the less, people knew what was going on, they wanted to talk about it and they wanted representation. I believe that is a strength of the British system and I want to be sure that we are not on the slippery slope to something else. That might be the consequence of the proposals-and if the Liberal Democrats had got their way on the 500, it certainly would have been the consequence. We would have been moving that way. That is why I believe there are different motivations on the Front Bench opposite. That means that we cannot have the sort of clarity-dare I say honesty?-that we need in this debate.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Does my noble friend realise that everything she is saying is borne out in the Liberal Democrat manifesto? The Liberal Democrat manifesto recommended lowering the number of MPs in another place to 500, but it did so on the basis of the introduction of the single transferrable vote electoral system. I believe that the case that my noble friend has made out is an unanswerable one and I very much look forward to how the Minister is going to address it.

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I thank my noble friend for that. I believe that as politicians-I was concerned about how the Leader of the House addressed this earlier-we have a responsibility to be as clear as possible, not just about the absolute nature of the legislation but on our thinking, which has brought us to this point, and, more than that, on where it is going to lead to. What is going to be the effect of this? We have a responsibility to the public because that is what democracy means.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: Did the noble Baroness support proportional representation in the devolution debates in Scotland and Wales?

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I was a member of the Government and there is collective responsibility in government, even though there are members of this Government who wish to refute that. I believe in collective responsibility.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: The noble Baroness has not answered the question.

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I am answering the question. I believe in collective responsibility. I supported that because I supported devolution. I supported the people who came through the convention in Scotland and asked for that. I personally did not agree with some of the outcomes, and I do not think that people understood some of the outcomes. Some of us raised that in Cabinet committees. However, because I believe in devolution and giving those who have responsibility for devolution the right to put forward the proposals that had come from their convention, yes, I supported it. The noble Lord shakes his head. I believe that that was the honest thing to do. If I had not done that, I would have broken the principle of agreeing with what the convention on devolution had come up with. In politics you have to take decisions where you do not get the perfect answer all the time. That is the problem for Liberals: they have worked in the past as though they can have all of their cake and eat all of it. They cannot.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: There was a convention in Wales. Did the noble Baroness support proportional representation in Wales?

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: There was much discussion in Wales, and there were different groupings in Wales that brought that forward. Again, I respected that.

Lord Campbell-Savours: What the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, is not admitting is that he is opposed to AV. He is in favour of proportional representation. He is one of those who are compromising on this matter.

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I see this as an issue for democracy, which is under enormous threat in this country as well as others. We take our democracy for granted but we have to nurture it. That means that those of us who are responsible in places such as this have a responsibility to be honest, as I say, about why we have come to the positions that we have reached, and what we think they will lead to. I agree that I have painted some extreme end positions, but we cannot nurture democracy and give people in this country confidence in what we are doing unless we properly follow the intellectual arguments. I do not believe that this House has been allowed to do that because of the way that Ministers have responded-or not responded-to us about motivations. Therefore, we do not know where they want to get to in the long term.
	I am speaking to this amendment because I do not believe that it is the role of the Government to set the number of seats. It is the role of the Government to say that they would like constituencies to be of about a particular size. It is the job of the Electoral Commission to get constituencies as near to that size as possible, taking into account distance, travel and so on. I will resist the temptation that other colleagues have taken to go around their constituencies. I used every weekend to travel about 200 to 250 miles in my constituency. I had one of the most beautiful constituencies in the country, which was largely a secret because most people never find out about the wonders of the Durham Dales. Some people who live in the Dales are very grateful for that because they want to keep the secret to themselves. I lived in one of the most beautiful constituencies but in the past weeks, while the snow has been there, I have felt very sorry for my successor. It has been impossible to get around. Every weekend, I would travel 200 or 250 miles, just in the normal course of constituency business.
	You have to be honest with people about what you are doing and where you are trying to get to. I do not believe that we have had the level of clarity that we should have had from Ministers. I know that they have different positions, but they have a responsibility to be straight with this House and the electorate so that they are able to judge whether this will be in their interests or simply in the interests of the Government.
	As my last point I would say that this is an issue that should be negotiated. There is no doubt about that. There is a difference between how this Government are approaching it and how the previous Government approached it. The only reason we are here at this hour is that the Government know that they do not need to negotiate. They can get their legislation because they have the numbers, so they do not need to negotiate. A very fair offer has been made by my Front Bench, which the usual channels would normally have taken up. It has not been taken up because, as I say, the Government know that they do not need to negotiate. That is a very bad position for them to be in when they are charged with nurturing our democracy.

Baroness Ford: I support my noble friend Lord Kennedy in his amendment, which is the crucial amendment. I am compelled to speak today because I have heard so many interesting contributions from former Members of the other place. However, I will not give the perspective of a former Member of Parliament. My life before I came to this House was not in politics but in business and the voluntary sector. I would like to speak from the perspective of a constituent. I have lived, and still live, in the constituency in which I was born. In those days it was called North Ayrshire, Arran and Bute. It adjoined the constituency of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, of which we heard much earlier. I now wonder if we ought to check the Register of Members' Interests to see if he has some connection to Visit Scotland, such was his passion.
	I must reveal to your Lordships' House an important omission by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. He did not tell noble Lords that in his constituency was the last surviving cannibal in the United Kingdom-the family of Sawney Bean. Only in south Ayrshire could you celebrate the fact that the last cannibal in the United Kingdom lived there with a non-vegetarian restaurant. Such is the surreal humour of people in Ayrshire.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I am grateful to my noble friend for reminding me of that. The presence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, also reminds me that I forgot to mention Maidens, to where he came some years ago when he was Lord Chancellor, to open Malin Court. I am now able to mention Maidens, Culzean and the whole area where Sawney Bean was reputed to ply his trade.

Baroness Ford: I thank the noble Lord for that. On a more serious point, I was born in that constituency. At that time the MP was the late, great Sir Fitzroy Maclean, a marvellous constituency MP. From listening to noble colleagues, he must have been the exception in the 1950s and early 1960s. This was a man absolutely devoted to his constituency. I speak from personal experience of the help that he gave to members of my family. He was an absolute champion in those days of disabled children and children with special needs. He made it his life's work to champion the needs of people in that constituency who could not speak up for themselves. He was a magnificent man. My noble friend Lord Anderson spoke about people with a hinterland. Sir Fitzroy Maclean, before he came into Parliament, was a member of the intelligence services and the Special Air Service, and was reputed to be the inspiration for the key figure in most of Alistair MacLean's novels. He was a quite remarkable man and greatly loved across the political spectrum in that constituency.

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: My noble friend rightly pays tribute to Sir Fitzroy Maclean. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament and I got to know him in his latter years. He and I went to Russia-or the Soviet Union, as it was then-together for a Burns supper in the Kremlin. Not only was he much respected in Scotland, but I discovered that he was enormously respected in the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. He was a man of enormous courage.

Baroness Ford: The point about Sir Fitzroy Maclean was that wherever he went in the constituency, he was instantly recognised. I well remember him coming to our primary school on a number of occasions. I do not know how many surgeries he held in those days, if that was the fashion, but he was a man who was deeply embedded in his constituency. He was a champion for everyone who lived in that constituency. After a minor boundary change, he was followed by John Corrie, again a Conservative Member of Parliament-a very vigorous Back Bencher, most notably remembered, I think, for his attempts to row back the abortion legislation. He was an indefatigable champion for that constituency, and my God did he have a difficult job, because during the time he was representing that constituency in the late 1970s, industry was decimated with the closure of the ICI factory in Stevenston which had hitherto employed 10,000 people across three or four towns. It was the absolute bedrock, but it was swept away. The shipyards were closed. All of the industrial heartland of that part of the west of Scotland, which has still not recovered, was swept away, and he did his best to represent that constituency. Of course, it was no surprise when he lost his seat and was replaced by Brian Wilson in 1987.
	What Sir Fitzroy Maclean, John Corrie and Brian Wilson, first in opposition and then as government Ministers, all had in common-and we have been so fortunate in that constituency over the years-was that they were dedicated champions of the people of that constituency. People felt that they could go to them irrespective of their politics and that they would get a hearing. More than that, something would be done about their plight. The current MP, Katy Clark, is following in that fine tradition.
	If you ask people in Scotland to pick an adjective to describe the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, they will overwhelmingly say that he is a very decent man. So I would appeal to the Government's sense of decency here. We simply cannot sweep away without any objective justification or rationale the important link that constituents have with their MP. I am looking at it from the constituent's end of the telescope, not from the MP's end of the telescope.
	Why was it that Fitzroy Maclean, John Corrie, Brian Wilson and now Katy Clark could conduct themselves so effectively as great MPs for the area? I think it was because the area of the constituency is entirely manageable. They can get around to all the important people in the constituency-and by "important people" I do not mean VIPs, I mean ordinary people. They can get around all the clubs, the community groups and all of the things that are really important where people want to see their MP. They want to connect with their MP and put their case. They want to be there in surgeries. How on earth are they going to enable the really important constitutional and traditional link which we have in this country and which we take for granted at our peril? How are we possibly going to maintain that link if we have constituencies where MPs simply cannot do the job that historically and traditionally people have expected them to do? There is no point shaking your head about that. It is really important.
	Sometimes when those of us who are involved in the middle of politics think about this, we think about it from our own perspective, but I want to talk about this from a constituent's perspective. I want the very best service possible for constituents, and I urge the Government to think really hard. I plead with the noble and learned Lord to give us in his answer some sense of how we are to explain this to people. I find it impossible to explain to people why this arbitrary figure comes out. In his answer, will the noble and learned Lord please give us an objective, sensible rationale for sweeping away what I think is the most important link-the ability of constituents to access their representative and the ability of elected representatives to do the very best job possible for their constituents?

Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, caused me a most unhappy flashback when he referred to the campaign for Welsh devolution of 1979. I had the misfortune of being the president of the yes campaign, which ended in very great disaster. I do not know exactly what the noble Lord's point was-no doubt it was done for utterly unmischievous reasons, to try to analyse what might be called the previous convictions of many other Members in relation to that matter. All I would say is this: whatever the situation was then, or even 18 years later, a line can now be drawn under all that. When the time comes, on 3 March of this year, we will all be standing in the same rank.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: I appreciate that the noble Lord was asleep when the noble Lords, Lord Kinnock and Lord Anderson, were making their speeches. Could the noble Lord confirm that the language issue played an important part in the 1979 referendum?

Lord Elystan-Morgan: Many issues that had nothing at all to do with devolution did play a part. I can well remember people saying very innocently to me, "Do you know, Mr Morgan, I go to see my niece in Shrewsbury once a month? I do not want to have to produce a passport at the English border". There were dozens of all sorts of evil tales that were told, and it may very well have been that the language was really one of them.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is altering his tune now. His allegation was not that the language issue played a part in the devolution campaign, but that my noble friend Lord Kinnock and I actually used that as a weapon. I said that was not true and I hope that he will withdraw it.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: I refuse to withdraw it because I was part of that campaign, and I know perfectly well that that was an issue which those who were opposed to devolution used and used viciously against the people of north Wales, from where I come. Similarly, in north Wales, we had those who were opposed to devolution saying that we would be attacked by those dreadful people in south Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, knows that very well.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: That issue was lost because Wales, in 1979, had no confidence in itself as a nation community. That situation no longer obtains. In 1979, that vote was lost in every one of the Welsh constituencies, with one notable exception, and that was Cardiganshire, where the vote was carried by a very slim majority. So it had very little to do with the issue of the Welsh language. In the end, it had everything to do with an absence of confidence and with an exploitation in a most ruthless and unprincipled way by those who were against devolution. Let us draw a line totally under that situation and revel in the fact that when Wales comes to that momentous decision on 3 March, we shall all-the noble Lords, Lord Thomas, Lord Kinnock and Lord Anderson, myself and the vast majority of the people of Wales-be standing shoulder to shoulder in favour of that proposition.
	My other point is this: if ever there was a time when the confidence of the public in ordinary Members of Parliament was low, this is it. I hope that I will never live to see a period when confidence is at a lower ebb than it is at the moment. I suspect that that is a thought, a principle and an attitude that will be shared by every Member of this House.
	The question in my mind is not essentially whether or not there is a case for reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament because people will have different views about that. The case that I have argued in the last few hours and over the past few weeks is that one should not make a stab in the dark. One should come to a decision in regard to this grave and weighty matter based upon evidence. That evidence should be collected by someone of high calibre who is utterly committed to giving a dispassionate picture of the situation so that Members of both Houses of Parliament and the public can come to a reasoned, logical, informed judgment in the matter. That has been my case and it remains exactly the same.
	However, that is not the point that I wish to make at this stage. All of us would wish to see confidence in Members of Parliament raised from the abysmally low level at which it is at present. Do you think you can do that by giving the public the impression that in some way or another you will at random nominate 50 of them as hostages and say, "Off you go"? It is all but the same as you marching into the bar of any public house in the United Kingdom and asking, "What do you think of these rotten fellows?". Many people might say, "Off with them. Get rid of them-50 of them in the next year"; and many people in the chorus behind would say, "Why not say 100?". In other words, you would be sending a psychological message that reducing the number of Members of Parliament from 650 to 600 appeals to the ordinary British citizen. That is a very unfortunate message. As far as they are concerned, you are saying, "These people are pretty rotten fellows. Let us get rid of 50 of them". I believe that would be devastating. Whatever advantages there might be from bringing about that adjustment-maybe there will be a saving of £12 million; maybe the saving will be much less than that; maybe there will be no saving at all for the reasons we have already heard; and there may or may not be a case for reduction-the psychological effect will be utterly disastrous along the lines that I have suggested.

Lord Liddle: My Lords, I speak for a second time on the question of opposing an arbitrary reduction in the size of the House of Commons, this time in support of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. When I spoke previously on the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, I strongly made the case that an arbitrary reduction would work against the better representation of remote and isolated communities and against respect for historic traditions in the way that constituency boundaries are drawn up. In his response, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, essentially, "Too bad. This is all about making sure that we have equal electoral districts".
	The problem with the position of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is that the Government have in the Bill recognised the need to take account of remote and isolated communities, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, well knows from his former constituency in Orkney and from the Shetland and Western Isles. In seeking to find the logic of this arbitrary reduction, why is it okay to recognise the very special position of the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland but to eliminate the possibility of the Boundary Commission taking local community factors into account by imposing this arbitrary reduction and then saying that it will have very little flexibility to deal with community considerations? I raise that again because the noble Lord, Lord McNally, gave me no satisfactory reply on the point. We need a House of Commons of sufficient size for the Boundary Commission to accommodate areas like Cumbria that have special problems of representation because of their geography and remoteness.
	The only rationale that the Government have given for their arbitrary cut is the claim that it is a good idea that cuts the cost of politics. We are told that the cost that will be cut is £12.2 million. I thought about what this represents as a way of trying to keep awake in the hours of the night. One way of expressing £12.2 million is that it is the cost of one hour of every day of the National Health Service. It is a trivial amount of money and a trivial basis on which to muck about with our democracy. The Government must come up with a better argument to justify the reduction than that it saves £12.2 million.
	The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, put it well. We all know why this reduction was put in place. It was a populist response to the anger about MPs' expenses, but it reduces the standing of Members of Parliament in the country because it gives the impression that we can go around saying that we need fewer of these wastrels whom we have to subsidise. It is quite disgraceful that the Liberal Democrats should endorse the populist nonsense that the Conservative Party promotes and propagates.
	If we had a serious debate about the size of the House of Commons, one would want to take into account all kinds of other factors, such as the international evidence. I am not an expert on the world, but I know a bit about Europe. When I look at the situation in the European Union, I do not see that we have too many politicians by comparison with our European partners. Germany has a very large Bundestag; it is a bigger country. It also has parliaments, governments and Ministers in each of the länder. In Italy, the Senate is a large chamber and there is also a Chamber of Deputies. We all crack jokes about Belgium, where there is a federal Parliament, three geographic parliaments and three language parliaments. The crack about Belgium is that there are more ministerial cars per head of population than in any other country in the European Union.
	I would like to see a proper paper on this. In a proper process, there would have been an opportunity for experts to conduct a proper international comparison of whether we in Britain have too many elected politicians. If that had been done, it would not have made the case for what the Government arbitrarily have decided to do.
	There are other arguments for reducing the size of the House of Commons. One is that you were going to go in for genuine regionalism and localism. However, is that what this Government are doing? The only bits of regional government that we have-the regional development agencies, which were originally envisaged as coming under regional government-are being abolished. As for extending the powers of local authorities, we do have the Localism Bill-but are the Government really proposing a major review of local authority finance in order to make sure that local authorities have much more independence of action than they have had? No, of course not. And are the Government actually releasing local authorities from central controls? No, of course not. Eric Pickles goes round saying, "You have got to collect your bins every week", and "You cannot pay your chief executive more than this". What kind of local freedom does Mr Pickles believe in? There is no argument for reducing the size of the Commons on the basis that we are going in for regional devolution and much more independent local government with greater freedom of action.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: So that we know where the noble Lord is coming from-and we do welcome him to this House from his days on the Liberal federal policy committee-does he support devolution and regionalism, and does he still support proportional representation?

Lord Liddle: I have made my views clear on all of those things since I have been on the Labour Benches. Indeed, I was just going on to say that there is a major argument about reform of the Lords, and whether that would, as part of a package, lead to a case for a reduction in the size of the Commons. This is, as we all know, an extremely complex subject. However, I am actually quite attracted to the idea of Britain adopting the kind of "balance of power" system that exists in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, I do not believe that there is much support in any of the political parties or that there are many people who actually agree with me.

Lord Greaves: Would the noble Lord, at 7.58 am, be fortified by the knowledge that I agree with him?

Lord Liddle: That is a great comfort to me at this stage of the day. I am very attracted to an arrangement that would reduce the power of the Executive in Britain, which is overlarge. However, this measure-the arbitrary reduction of the size of the House of Commons-increases the power of the Executive, because it increases the proportion of the payroll vote in the House of Commons. What is the answer to that point? What are the Government proposing to do? What are the Liberal Democrat Members of the Government proposing to do to make sure that the power of the Executive in the House of Commons does not increase as a result of this legislation? I look forward to an answer. These are important points of principle-but where have the Government given any intellectual, proper, thought-through justification for what they are doing? I do not think they have at all, which is why I think many of us have been justified in staying up all night and arguing about this issue. These are major issues, not trivial issues, and we have had no satisfactory answers.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I take a somewhat flexible view on the future size of the House of Commons, although I support this amendment pending an independent inquiry on what the optimum size of the House should be. I am going to produce some information which the Government should take quite seriously. While Members have been on their feet, I have been going through the Sessional Returns for the House of Commons Session 2009-10. The relevance of the House of Commons's Sessional Returns is that we are dealing with effort and the ability of Members of Parliament to carry out their functions properly. I think that the vast majority of the wider public would be very interested in this document, if only it were to be made available, but, of course, they would not read it. So I will extract the information which I think should be made more widely available.
	I shall start by referring to the contribution of my noble friend Lord Foulkes, although I was not here when he spoke because I was upstairs resting. My noble friend was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The relevance of that committee is that, while it is not a committee of Parliament but of parliamentarians, it is an indicator of what happens in circumstances where a Member of Parliament is genuinely interested and is prepared to make the time available to ensure that they carry out their functions properly.
	I was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee between 1997 and 2001. What characterised the committee was the high level of attendance at the committee's proceedings. In most of our proceedings everyone turned up. While I have not seen statistics recording the incidence of attendance, I would imagine that it must be 90 per cent to 95 per cent.
	I should like to ask this House to consider the Sessional Returns of the House of Commons which deal with matters of attendance at its committees. One has to remember the distinction between the House of Commons and this House. In the House of Commons, Members are paid £65,000 in salary. They have substantial expenses, although IPSA is reducing them, particularly those for administrative allowances, because of the contribution that now has to be made to the pensions of employees. However, in this House, we volunteer our services. We are not remunerated or paid and we have expenses. I draw that distinction because in the House of Commons you would imagine that, because they are paid, they would therefore have the time to give to ensuring that they carry out their duties.
	I shall divide the committees in the House of Commons into broadly two groups. The regional committees were established by the Labour Government following demands for greater regional discussion in the House. I want to go through the returns for each of the regional committees. First, Conservative Members refused to attend them. If you want to find out why they refused to attend the committees, all you have to do is go back to the debates that took place in the House of Commons when it was establishing the regional committees. Their case was, "We simply don't have the time".
	In other words, a committee structure was established in the House of Commons where Members were arguing that they were unable to attend. The result was that membership of these regional committees was only Labour membership. MPs of other parties felt unable to attend them because of problems of time. The result was that in the East Midlands Committee the attendance rate, which was from only Labour Members because no other members attended, was 64 per cent. In the London Committee, the rate was 73.8 per cent. Let us remember that only Labour members were attending.
	In the Yorkshire and Humber Committee, the rate was 86.7 per cent. In the North East Committee and the North West Committee, it was 80 per cent. In the South-East Committee, the rate was 65 per cent and in the South-West Committee it was 75 per cent. In the West Midlands Committee, it was 80 per cent. What that indicates-remember, only Labour Members were attending-is that there are conditions in which Members are committed to the work of that committee and they are prepared to commit their time to that procedural arrangement within the House of Commons.
	When I was first elected to the Commons, the first committee that I was put on was the Public Accounts Committee. I remember those early days. The chairman was the noble Lord-

A noble Lord: Lord Sheldon.

Lord Campbell-Savours: No, he came after the-

A noble Lord: Lord Radice?

Lord Campbell-Savours: No, before the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon. It was my noble friend, the former Treasury Minister.

Noble Lords: Lord Barnett.

Lord Campbell-Savours: That was it. My noble friend Lord Barnett was the first chairman, and he was followed by my noble friend Lord Sheldon. During the period of my noble friend Lord Barnett's chairmanship, the attendance was almost 100 per cent. It was a very well attended committee to which Members of the House were prepared to give much of their time. Yet when I looked at the Sessional Return for 2009-10, the attendance rate had dropped to 42.5 per cent-in other words, a substantial reduction in attendance over the 20 years following the period when I was first elected. Even in 1990 when I came off that committee, attendances were very high.
	Take other committees. The Science and Technology Committee has 41.4 per cent attendance. What is happening? Why has there been a substantial reduction in the number of people available to attend House of Commons committees? Take the Justice Sub-Committee: attendance is just 23.8 per cent. Many members of the Justice Sub-Committee in the House of Commons failed completely to attend any sessions of the committee, I presume because they simply did not have the time available to them.
	The Regulatory Reform Committee had attendance of only 33.3 per cent. I was under the impression that that committee in the House of Commons, chaired very competently by Andrew Miller, would attract the interest of Members, but only one-third of the meetings were attended.

Lord McFall of Alcluith: I understand the point that the noble Lord is making about the demands on Members of the House of Commons, but I chaired the Treasury Committee in 2001-10, and if he looks at the Sessional Returns, which I looked at every year because, like him, I found them of interest, he will find that the committee meetings were twice a week. In addition to those two meetings a week, there was a sub-committee, chaired by the ranking so-called minority Member, and the attendance throughout was well over 90 per cent; indeed, right up to the end of the 2010 election, attendance was still well over 90 per cent. So it has been my experience in the House of Commons that Members take their duties seriously, notwithstanding the fact that there are now many aspects that put pressure on them.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My noble friend is correct. He is emphasising the fact that certain committees-I referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee and the Treasury Committee-attract Members, but when it comes to what some Members obviously regard as Cinderella committees, they simply cannot find the time because they do not have the time available to attend them.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: From my experience, it is certainly true that the popular committees-the Treasury Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, probably the Home Affairs Committee-actually get a very good turnout. On the other side, there are therefore what my noble friend calls the Cinderella committees. Do his figures suggest on how many occasions these committees were not quorate?

Lord Campbell-Savours: I was going to come on to that. I have found references in the Sessional Returns to committees not being quorate; indeed, I have attended committees in the House of Commons that were not quorate. One of them, on one occasion, was the Commons Privileges Committee, which has always been regarded as an important committee. As I say, though, there are other committees that over the years have not been quorate. I can remember times when Clerks have actually had to appeal to members of a Select Committee not to leave for fear that the business might be lost because we had witnesses standing outside the door waiting to come in and give evidence. If that is the kind of pressure that is being exerted on Select Committees in the House of Commons, does it not suggest that we should be very wary about reducing the numbers of MPs without a full inquiry based on what I believe to be the principal amendment that we have discussed over the past couple of weeks-that is, the Wills amendment, which I hope the Government will seriously consider as we proceed with this legislation?
	I come to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I was also a member for a period. I see that attendance at that committee has now dropped to 49.2 per cent-indeed, there were members of that committee who did not attend any committee meetings at all, which I find quite astonishing. When I was a member of that committee it was regularly attended. I keep asking myself, "Why is it that the attendance of these committees has dropped?". That is an important part of this debate. If we cannot man committees in the House of Commons, we have to be very wary about what action we take on membership.
	I see that the Communities and Local Government Committee is now down to 43.6 per cent attendance. The Children, Schools and Families Committee is down to 46.1 per cent. The Environmental Audit Committee-a substantial committee in the House of Commons, with an important remit to carry out audits on environmental matters-is down to 37.5 per cent turnout. The Science and Technology Committee is down to 42.3 per cent.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My noble friend may not be aware that we have had similar problems in the past in this House. About four years ago, the Conservative Party was unable to meet its requirements to take up all its places and fill them regularly on the European Union sub-committees. When I first came into this Chamber we had 12 members for the EU Standing Committee and its sub-committees, but that had to be reduced to 10 for a period because there were insufficient Peers from the Conservative side to take up their allocation. I presume, now that we have more people coming into the Chamber, that they will be able to fill the 12 places if we go back to that number. The point is that we did not have sufficient Peers to take up all the places available and do all the work that needed to be done. I presume that that applies to what my noble friend is drawing our attention to in the Commons.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Yes, but there is a distinction, which I drew attention to before, between the House of Commons and the House of Lords: we are not remunerated. We stand here unpaid. They are paid but they cannot manage to man all the committees that have been established in the other place.
	I have done three Joint Committees dealing with draft legislation. What is interesting about those committees is that they are invariably attended by the Members of this House, but we have found a low level of attendance by Members of the other place. When you ask them why that is, it is often because they simply do not have the time to attend Joint Committees of the House, particularly when it comes to dealing with draft legislation. I make no criticism of that, because I know the pressure that MPs are under.
	Let me take another committee, an interesting one to which people want to return: the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, where turnout is 79.2 per cent. That only emphasises the fact that if Members are particularly interested in an area they will find the time for it, at the cost of other work that they do. Meanwhile, other committees, which they obviously regard as Cinderella committees, simply do not secure a sufficient level of attendance. I could go through all of these, but I have already been on my feet for 15 minutes and have made my case.
	I often visit MPs in their offices in the other place. They loathe doing Statutory Instrument Committees. The Government of the day-I understand that it happens on both sides-often desperately ring round asking Members of Parliament to attend Statutory Instrument Committees because they cannot find people to sit on them. When MPs get there, they are invariably told by their government Whips, "Please don't speak. Don't say anything". If they speak they will delay the Minister who has to get back to his department to get on with his job, and other Members want to return to their offices to get on with the sensible work that they do as Members of the House of Commons.
	I now move to a conversation that I had last night over dinner. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is laughing, as he is well aware of the dinners that we have in the House; they are always very constructive. The one last night was particularly constructive as my attention was drawn to the handling of this legislation in the Commons and the use of the guillotine on these amendments. I think that we were guillotined last night at about 1 o'clock in the morning when we had a guillotine Division.
	Perhaps I should explain to noble Lords who have not been Members of the other House that in this House all amendments tabled can be debated; however, that is not the case in the House of Commons. One of the great joys of being a Member of this House is that we know that all amendments, when the House is working properly-which it is not at the moment because the Government are insisting on ramming through this legislation-can technically be debated.

Lord McNally: I know how dearly the noble Lord appreciates that right. Does he realise that that right was lost in another place at the end of the 19th century by gross abuse of the freedoms of that House by the Fenians? Are there any lessons to be learnt from that?

Lord Campbell-Savours: The noble Lord got the century wrong-it was the 20th century.

Lord McNally: Sorry, it was the 19th century. Go to the Library.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: Does my noble friend construe that intervention by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, as a threat?

Lord McNally: It was not a threat, but I have spent all my political life learning the lessons of history.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Whichever party you were in.

Lord McNally: Whichever party I have been in.

Lord Campbell-Savours: I thought that the noble Lord was referring to the introduction or the greater use of the guillotine, which, if I had been a Member of the House of Commons at the time, I would have voted against. I strongly believe that you cannot proceed with legislation if you insist on guillotining it. The problem with this Bill is that it is highly political.
	I return to what happens in the House of Commons where amendments are not automatically debated. They are selected in what is called Speaker's selection, whereby probably the majority simply are not accepted as debatable on the Floor of the House. That is the first hurdle that you have to get through in the House of Commons when you table an amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is probably thinking, "I wonder whether we can do that here". If we were to do that in the House of Lords, it would completely transform this place. If you want to clear people out, that is probably the way to do it. The moment you start to interfere with the rights of this House of Members to debate issues freely in the way that historically we have been able to do over the years, you create the incentive for people to leave the House.

Lord Greaves: Nothing changes. I leave the Chamber and I have some sleep and it is like a bad recurring dream, except that it is the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, speaking. He speaks with his usual originality and eloquence. However, he is now arguing about the benefits of self-regulation, which seems to be straying from this amendment. Is he aware that the Companion suggests that, in most circumstances, speeches should not exceed 15 minutes and that he is now on 21 minutes? Is it not the case that the self-regulation that he extols-on which I agree with him entirely-requires a degree of self-discipline from all of us in adhering to the rules laid down in the Companion?

Lord Campbell-Savours: It is very easy interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, say that, because I can think of innumerable occasions when we have been in Committee in the Moses Room, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has been on his feet amendment after amendment, with his own people complaining that they cannot shut him up. Yes, that happens. He might not be aware of that, but we are very well aware of it.

Lord Greaves: The rule that I am referring to is that you do not speak for more than 15 minutes. That is a rule to which I attempt to adhere, and I do not believe that I have ever spoken for over 20 minutes on an issue in Committee. We have heard during the Committee stage of this Bill speech after speech going on for more than 20 minutes, and in some cases more than 30 minutes. This seems to me to be a breach of the rules in the Companion. As I say, in a self-regulating House it is surely up to all Members, even in Committee stage, which is fairly flexible, to adhere to the rules. Surely, however much Members opposite want to filibuster on this Bill, it does not require speaking for more than the Companion suggests.

Lord Campbell-Savours: He seems to have moved from the Companion to the rule book. I have always seen a distinction between the two. I always understood that we proceed by way of agreement; the usual channels talk, Members deal courteously with each other, the legislation is dealt with in a way that is constructive. Of course, the whole relationship only works in conditions where the Government of the day are being reasonable. I would argue that, on this particular Bill, the Government of the day are being most unreasonable.
	At this stage, however, as I have a number of later contributions to make-I understand we might be going on-I will take my seat and hope that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, might be tempted to join in our debates. He, like me, managed to grab a few hours in bed upstairs, I presume. He will have come to the House refreshed. We all await what he has to say.

Lord Low of Dalston: My Lords, I have not had any hours of sleep during the night, I am sorry to say, but happily the Cross Benches are springing to life. I cannot match the floods of eloquence to which we have been treated through the watches of the night, but when, at after eight in the morning, we are still debating the fifth amendment, after what must be 15 or 16 hours of continuous debate, and with debates on amendments weighing in at two and a half hours each, and sometimes a good deal more, it occurs to me that it may be time for a view from the Cross-Benches. It will not be lost on the Opposition that they have been the subject of criticism for time-wasting and abusing the procedures of the House in a way that tries the patience of the House and brings it into disrepute. But it takes two to make a stand-off. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the Government to manage the House so as to carry the House with them and not alienate the Opposition to the point where they withdraw co-operation.
	In order to while away the time during the watches of the night, I turned up The Coalition: Our Programme for Government. Paragraph 24 is on political reform. It begins mildly enough by saying that,
	"The Government believes that our political system is broken."-
	It goes on,
	"We urgently need fundamental political reform, including a referendum on electoral reform,-
	well, we all know about that, and it goes on,
	"much greater co-operation across party lines,-
	and then it goes on to
	"changes to our political system to make it far more transparent and accountable"
	and so on. Much greater co-operation across party lines? Whatever happened to that? It is perfectly clear to me that if the Government would only engage in the usual kind of discussion which takes place through the usual channels, they could get their Bill and we could all go home for a rest.
	Of course, I am speaking only for myself-

Lord McNally: Is the noble Lord, Lord Low, aware, that before this Bill entered the House, my noble friend Lord Shutt, the Deputy Chief Whip, tried to engage the Opposition Chief Whip in giving what is usually given to a Government when a Bill enters this House: a working timetable for dealing with the Bill. We have not succeeded at any time in getting into those kinds of negotiations. The usual channels have not worked because the Labour Party have been determined from the beginning that they would not work. If they want to have meetings in the lee of this Session, we are willing still to talk about how to timetable this Bill properly through the House using the normal procedures which allow all amendments to be grouped properly and debated thoroughly. That offer has always been there, so it is not fair to say that it has not, but it takes two to tango.

Lord Peston: I assume that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, does not want to mislead your Lordships' House intentionally, but I am under the impression that the Opposition have said that the Government can have both parts of this Bill as long as they come as two Bills. In trying to show how macho they are, the Government have behaved totally irrationally; they are behaving like spoilt brats, namely, "We will have both or we'll have none". Their mother ought to tell them that they are going to have none.

Lord Low of Dalston: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for clarifying the situation. When I have finished, I hope he will take the opportunity to clarify it still further. In what he has said so far, it sounded as if what he was offering the Opposition in the talks to which he referred was something like a guillotine. In any case, as I was saying, I am speaking only for myself, but I feel confident that I am reflecting the views of a lot of my Cross-Bench colleagues when I beg the parties to get into discussion with a view to putting an end to this stalemate, and sorting things out through the usual channels in the way that leadership is normally provided to the House.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: My Lords, perhaps I may make a very short intervention. I was astonished to hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, remind us how the House of Commons lost its right of debating at length by the introduction-

Lord McNally: Perhaps I may intervene. The noble and learned Lord is a grand old parliamentarian who can spot an opportunity when he sees one. I made no threat to this House. All I did was draw the parallel that if a party in this House makes it unworkable, there are dangers for the traditions of this House. That is only point I was making, so I hope he will not spin from it a 15 or 20-minute speech.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: I have no intention of spinning and I have not said a word so far. I know that the noble Lord is concerned about the interpretation that will be made of his words. He will want to look at them extremely carefully. He quoted the Fenians and he said he was drawing lessons from history-although he got the centuries wrong first time, but we forgive him for that-but the only interpretation I can make is that he was warning us about what has happened in the Commons. I cannot for the life of me, being as generous as I can, think of any other interpretation. Perhaps the noble Lord will look at those words carefully so that at the end of the debate we can have a firm affirmation from the Government that, whatever the gaffe may have been, it was not intended as a threat.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Well, my Lords, this has been an interesting debate, particularly so at the end. I shall deal first with the substance of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark. The Bill as currently drafted states that the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be 600. The amendment seeks to delete 600 and put in 650. Much of the debate over my noble friend's amendment has revolved around three issues. What is the reason for the Government to have chosen the figure of 600 as the size of the Commons? Secondly, if the number of seats is reduced from 650 to 600, does that improve the governance of this country? Thirdly, is there legitimacy in what is being proposed?
	I turn first to what is the basis for the change being proposed. A number of reasons have been given by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. They amount to the following suggestion: that a judgment has to be made and it cannot be done on the basis of science. It is a legitimate judgment that will improve the governance of this country. How the figure was selected is not suggested. After the Leader of the House made his appearance in this House on the issue, he went to the studios of Sky News where he was asked the following questions by a man called Mr Martin Stanford. He was asked whether having 600 constituencies rather than 650 was a politically neutral move. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, responded:
	"Very much so, and for many people it isn't enough. The House of Commons has gone through a terrible period over the last couple of years. It is time to make amends and restore trust in politics. Part of that is to say that there should be fewer politicians around at the moment, particularly in the House of Commons, so a reduction of 50".
	Mr Stanford said:
	"Why stop at 50, then? Let's have 200 fewer or let's have 300 MPs".
	The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, answered:
	"There are people who argue in favour of a considerable reduction, but I think reducing it by 50 is in accordance with what most people would want their MPs to do. It doesn't require them to do that much extra work, but it is still a substantial reduction. It saves money and it creates a fairer system across the United Kingdom".
	So it appears that the reason given was rather as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, not a reason that had been given in this House hitherto-namely, that people want fewer politicians around at the moment, particularly in the House of Commons, and a reduction of 50 is what people want. It is very hard to believe that that is the only reason, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely that simply reducing the House of Commons by 50 is going to restore trust in the House of Commons. It seems, with the greatest of respect, an unlikely scenario and, until yesterday afternoon or evening in the Sky studio, it was not suggested to this House.
	I move on to the second question: does it improve governance? Again, that depends upon what we expect our Members of Parliament to do in relation to their constituency work and their work at the centre of government here at Westminster. Again, I do not think there is any dispute: no work has been done in relation to that to work out what work should be done.
	The third question is: does it increase legitimacy in relation to the state of politics in this country and/or the House of Commons? It may be what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was trying to convey in the short answer he gave to the debate before going to the TV studio to give another answer. It seems to me that, first, some basis of choice has to be advanced, and none has been advanced and that, secondly, it has to appear to be disinterested. The flip reason given in the television studio, coupled with no intellectual argument and no independent justification, makes it very hard to convince people that it is a disinterested change from 650 to 600. That is made worse by the fact that the figures given by the two parties that now make up the collation were 585 and 500 respectively. It is difficult in those circumstances to understand why it was not possible to agree something between the two figures rather than something above it.
	Finally, is there party advantage involved in relation to this? Independent studies have been done which suggest that more opposition seats will be lost than any other. That increases the suspicion in relation to it, which is made all the worse by the fact that the explanation given in television studios is different from the explanation given in this Chamber.
	I shall deal with points that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Low. His strictures are absolutely correct. We as politicians in this House should try to reach agreement. We stated at the beginning of this Sitting, which started 15 and a half hours ago at quarter past three, that we were prepared to consult and negotiate on process and substance, and we heard nothing until the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, "Oh! We're willing to negotiate". Let us negotiate about it now, not across this Chamber. We have been willing to agree the dates that you want. Let us be grown up now and let us negotiate a way through this because the noble Lord, Lord Low, is right: this requires leadership on both our parts. We are willing to negotiate, and I am happy to negotiate with the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip because that is what we need to do.
	My noble friend Lord Kinnock made a very impressive speech, saying that this is the House of negotiation. It is, and if self-regulating is to survive, it is important we reach an agreement.
	I support the intervention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, 100 per cent. Speaking entirely for myself, I cannot think of any other reason that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would have mentioned it, except for us to say to us, "Watch out or it might happen to you".

Lord McNally: The noble and learned Lord just said,
	"if self-regulating is to survive".
	What does he mean by that?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I was referring to what the noble Lord said. I cannot think of any other reason why the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would blurt out in the course of our debate that we should mark carefully that the other place lost the right to debate every amendment. What was the reason for that intervention?

Lord McNally: It is precisely the words that he used: "if self-regulating is to survive". He knows, as would anybody who has managed this House's business, that if Bills are treated as this Bill has been treated, government is impossible. If self-regulation is to survive, this cannot be the normal procedure for the Opposition of the day. That is not a threat; it is an observation.

Lord Morris of Aberavon: Stop digging.

Lord McNally: I am not digging; I desperately want to save the principles of self-regulation of this House from being destroyed by that side. That is not digging. I know what I am saying and I do not retract one word of it because I am desperately worried that the Opposition have now got into a position where they think that they can threaten and veto almost any part of government.

A noble Lord: Rubbish!

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Low. Finger-waving and dismissing a whole group of people on the basis of an argument with one or two people does not assist the impression given by this House anywhere. I can only interpret the words of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, as being a threat to the House. Over a long period, there have been Bills that have incensed Members of this House into making long speeches. I recall the behaviour of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, during the passage of the legislation for the reform of your Lordships' House.

Lord Eden of Winton: Are we not anxious to hear the rest of the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I am afraid that I have bad news: there is no more; it is complete.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: On that basis, I will take my cue and respond to a debate which started two hours and 50 minutes ago. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would maintain the number of constituencies in the other place precisely at 650. It is not entirely a defence of the status quo, because, unlike with the amendment that was moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, some 15 or 16 hours ago, the figure of 650 would be fixed and the Boundary Commission's rules would be subject to it, as we would wish the number of 600 to be.
	I do not think that there are any arguments which will persuade noble Lords opposite that have not already been advanced. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, quoted at some length the interview given to Sky by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, which echoes what has been said here. I have made it clear on more than one occasion that both parties in this coalition Government advocated a reduction in the number of Members of the House of Commons in their respective manifestos. I also indicated, picking up a point made in a much earlier debate by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and answering a question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, that there was a context for the figure 500-there is nothing new about that; I acknowledged that some 13 hours ago. We wanted as a party to go down to a figure of 500; nevertheless, we indicated that we still thought that the House of Commons should be reduced in size. We have advanced on occasions that there would be a saving of some £12.2 million annually. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said that that was a trivial amount. Perhaps it should not surprise us on this side that the party opposite ran up such a deficit when it has people such as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in its ranks. It is perhaps indicative of a mindset that was at work in his Government.

Lord Kinnock: When the noble Lord checks Hansardwhen today's proceedings are available, he will see himself describing the saving as a modest saving to public expenditure, which is a fair declaration; it runs pretty contrary to the declarations made at the time that the Leader of the Conservative Party announced with a flourish that he was going to cut the number of MPs by 10 per cent in order to make savings.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: There is a world of difference between saying it is a modest amount, which it is, and just dismissing it as not worth doing because it only saves a trivial amount. That was the point I was seeking to make.
	The point has been made yet again in this debate, as in earlier debates, that somehow or other there ought to be some sort of method of working out what the right size is for the other place based on some analysis of workload-be it through an examination of the sessional returns or not. There may be reasons other than Members not being able to find time as to why some of these committees were not attended, because my recollection is that there was some controversy over the setting up of the regional committees and that may well be reflected in the attendance.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, in the usual powerful way in which he expresses opinions, talked about the difficulty of defining the purpose of a Member of Parliament. He called it the perpetual motion of change. It would make it very difficult to find out that there is some way we can empirically arrive at a figure which would be the right number, derived in some way through committees of inquiry or weighing up evidence from 650 different Members of Parliament. Members of Parliament face different challenges, and constituencies vary. Calculating the ideal size of the Commons through a consideration of the role of an MP would be difficult, if not impossible. The Government believe that such an approach is both unrealistic and unnecessary. Our proposals make a modest reduction in the overall size of the House. The result of this will be constituencies that are within 5 per cent of the quota of 76,000. Nobody has seriously suggested that those Members of Parliament who represent seats within 5 per cent either way of 76,000 are somehow or other unable to fulfil their function. One noble Lord-I think perhaps it was the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong-said that it was unreasonable for the Government to fix the size of the electorate. What we are doing is seeing what the size of the electorate is, and dividing the total electorate and coming up with a figure of 600. We have indicated that the difference between what we are doing, having reached that figure and fixing it at that, and what the position is at the moment, is that at the moment it can incrementally go up as it has done in every boundary review bar one since 1950.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, along with other noble Lords, expressed concern as to how Members of Parliament could still be champions of their local communities-that somehow or other it will no longer be possible. I thought it was interesting that, in his as-ever spirited contribution to the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, mentioned that, in the constituency he used to represent, Cumnock had no relationship with Girvan; some people of Cumnock had never been to Girvan, he said, and the communities there did not really know each other. That does not exactly suggest that the present system has got the kind of wonderful embracing communities as has sometimes been suggested.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords-

Lord Wallace of Tankerness: I think that the noble Lord has given us the benefit of his views at some length.
	It is important to point out that the Boundary Commission can still take into account, to such extent as it thinks fit, special geographical considerations, including the size, the shape and the accessibility of a constituency. It may take account, to such extent as it thinks fit, of any local ties that would be broken by changes in the constituencies. The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, seemed to suggest that the constituency would become unmanageable-one that she has been familiar with over all the years, which I think is now North Cunninghame. The rules proposed by this Bill also put a physical limit in terms of size, having regard to the current size of the seat represented by my right honourable friend, Mr Charles Kennedy. It is a pretty challenging task that Charles has, but people in his constituency to whom I have spoken recognise that he has been an effective and industrious constituency Member of Parliament. That is the upper limit in terms of size, and there is a sliding scale as one gets to that upper limit. What we are proposing should not break the ties and the link that those of us who have had the privilege to serve in the other place feel to the constituencies that we were proud to represent. With these comments, I wholeheartedly reject the suggestion that on this side there has been any question of gerrymandering. I note the comment made by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, who talked about an attachment to the status quo by a number of noble Lords on the other side of the House. Sometimes an adherence to the status quo can be the means by which gerrymandering can come in by the back door. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Can the Minister tell us when a Government last fixed the total number of seats to come out of the boundary review? His noble friend did not appear to have the facts at his fingertips, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is making it quite plain that in his view what is happening in this Bill is entirely normal. If it is so normal, when did it first happen?

Lord Anderson of Swansea: One further matter has not been addressed in any way by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. The noble Lord, Lord Low, asked a very important question that has not been addressed. From the vantage of the Cross Benches, he said that the usual channels were clogged, which was unfortunate for Parliament, and that ways and means should be found properly to enter into a dialogue. At that, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that the Government were ready to enter properly into dialogue. The fact of entering into dialogue is not in itself important; it depends on the spirit in which that dialogue is entered into.
	Given the concessions which my noble friend has already made on behalf of the Opposition and to avoid yet further lengthy discussions on this Bill, I hope the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will confirm that, when those negotiations are entered into, the Government will be ready to look objectively at the points that have been made and will not enter into a diktat or threaten guillotines but will seek to find a reasonable way through. In my judgment, that means that we have still not received a response to the very important question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Low, objectively and rationally, in an attempt to return to the values and practices that this House values.

Lord Kennedy of Southwark: I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, for his response, and all other noble Lords who have made contributions. I am pleased that the Minister has responded to me. In general, he has handled quite well the situation in which the Government find themselves. He certainly has a more reasonable style about him than the noble Lords, Lord McNally or Lord Strathclyde, except when he was talking to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, when he got a bit upset. However, he has generally handled himself well in his responses to points that noble Lords have made.
	I agree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and am pleased that he thinks my amendment the best of the bunch. He explained the importance of surgeries in a large rural constituency. My noble friend Lord Kinnock's comments are right, and I hope that the Government will heed his wise words, although I have been disappointed in that respect. He outlined the increase in numbers of the electorate and the massive increase in demands on Members of Parliament since he first entered the other place in 1970. I agree with my noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea that the lack of negotiation is regrettable and surprising, and I can only hope that sooner rather than later the government Front Bench will open the channels properly on this Bill. His explanation of how Parliament has changed since he first entered the other place in 1966 was very illuminating. He also mentioned the importance of the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and the problems of getting Members to participate, with all the pressures on them.
	My noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top made some very interesting points. She is right about the two sides of coalition having got to where they are from very different perspectives. That might be why they are in such difficulties today.
	My noble friend Lady Ford gave a perspective as a constituent since, like me, she has not served in the other place. She reminded me of Harry Lambourne, who served as a Member in the Peckham constituency with distinction before Harriet Harman succeeded him after his death in 1982. If I remember correctly, he served as PPS to the noble Lord, Lord Healey, when he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
	The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, made some interesting points. He made the point that we should not take a stab in the dark; we need an independent person to look at this in a reasoned, confident and sensible manner. He also made a very eloquent point about the damage that is being done to Members in the other place in this discussion.
	My noble friend Lord Liddle raised the issue of certain seats being selected for protection and others not. Cumbria is not an area that I know well, but he made a powerful point about it. He also made the point about the damage done to Parliament and informed the House of the situation in various European countries.
	My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours informed the House of the sessional returns of the other place and illustrated again from that the lack of Members' participation in certain committees because of the pressure of time.
	I agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Low. The Government need to open up proper communications with the Labour Front Bench and to seek to resolve this matter so that they can get their Bill through this House.
	To the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, all I can say is that we all need to look very carefully at Hansard tomorrow and make up our own minds about the intention of the noble Lord, Lord McNally.
	Finally, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 63 withdrawn.
	Motion
	 Moved by Lord Falconer of Thoroton
	That the House do now resume.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, we have now been going from 3.15 pm, when we started the debate on going into Committee. It is now three minutes to nine the next morning. We have been going, by my calculations, for 17 hours approximately, which is not congenial to good scrutiny of the Bill. It is also worth drawing attention to the Code of Conduct, which says:
	"Membership of the House is not an office, and does not constitute employment; most Members' primary employment is or has been outside Parliament. In discharging their parliamentary duties Members of the House of Lords draw substantially on experience and expertise gained outside Parliament".
	Very many Members of this House, including me, make their arrangements on the basis that we do not sit in the mornings. There are exceptions, but there is absolutely no reason why, with no discussion through the usual channels, we should now lose this day. Just as important as that and the point that it is not congenial to scrutiny is the point that we need to show a bit of leadership in this House and reach an agreement. Two conflicting views are being expressed. One is that the Government insist on having their Bill in full whenever they want it, in effect. We are saying that yes, they can have their referendum, but there should be proper scrutiny of Part 2 of the Bill. That must be capable of agreement, and there should be negotiations about it.
	For all three reasons, I move that the House do now resume.

Lord Low of Dalston: I support the Motion moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. From my standpoint, quite apart from the question of scrutiny of legislation and how effectively it can be conducted in the state we are in early the following morning, 17 hours after the debate began what strikes me is that we are all getting rather ragged and the debate is getting rather scratchy. There is even a tendency for passions to become inflamed. It would be a very good idea if we could take a pause and allow a period for things to cool down, obviating a potentially nasty situation developing in the House. Most particularly, it would give those on the two Front Benches, through the usual channels, some space in which to conduct the dialogue that both of them have said they want to conduct. I therefore urge the House to support this Motion so that we can create the space which those on the two Front Benches are, in effect, begging us to create for them.

Division on the Motion to resume..
	Contents 69; Not-Contents 146.
	Motion disagreed.

Amendment 63YA
	 Moved by Lord Knight of Weymouth
	63YA: Clause 11, page 9, line 18, leave out "600" and insert "decided once the membership and powers of a reformed House of Lords have been agreed by both Houses of Parliament."

Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, there appears to be daylight outside. I think that we have missed the dawn chorus but in here Monday rolls on. I am pleased to move the debate on a little by my amendment, which asks that we should not decide the numbers in the other place until the membership and powers of your Lordships' House have been agreed by both Houses of Parliament.
	In putting down this amendment I seek to extract from the government Front Bench something of the bigger picture on how the Bill, particularly this part of it, fits into their wider plans for constitutional reform. We heard my noble friend Lady Armstrong speak earlier today in a similar vein but it would be sensible for us to understand more clearly the Government's thinking on the powers in both Houses. We would then be in a better position to debate and understand where we should go as regards composition, what sort of electoral systems should be used in both Houses and the numbers of Members of both Houses of Parliament.
	There is, of course, an obvious link between the two Chambers when we look through the current looking-glass of politics whereby we are debating losing 50 elected Members of the other place while the Government oversee the introduction of more than 100 additional unelected Members into your Lordships' House. By any measure that is somewhat bizarre in a country which prides itself on its democracy and on having the mother of all Parliaments. However, I want to flesh out a more substantial link during this debate. I agree with the amendment grouped with this one, Amendment 63YB in the name of my noble friend Lord Grocott, who argues that we should not agree to the House of Commons having fewer Members than this House. When speaking to noble Lords I have found agreement on all sides of your Lordships' House that we are at present a somewhat bloated House. I am one of those who have added to that corpulent figure. I am not referring to the Leader who has just stood up. I thought that he was going to intervene. I am referring to your Lordships' House being somewhat corpulent. As I say, I am one of the more recently introduced Members. There seems to be agreement on all sides that it has become a little too large. Certainly, when we are thinking about the size of the other place, we should also be thinking about the size of your Lordships' Chamber.
	We have debated at some length the fact that the Government want to reduce the number of MPs through this Bill for the two principal reasons of overrepresentation and cost. I will not rehearse again in any great detail all the arguments that we have heard over the past 15 hours. However, I have not yet spoken in the debate on this part at any length, and certainly not today. I do not believe there is any evidence that the other place is overrepresented on any international comparison. I am struck by the Lewis Baston and Stuart Wilks-Heeg analysis. I do not believe there is any evidence that it is overrepresented, particularly if you include representatives from below the national level.
	I think it is a shame that we have not heard the bigger picture from the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nick Clegg, particularly given that his party used to be committed to a political restructuring at all levels. We could start to make sense of the notion of over-representation if we looked at all levels of government in this country-or not, because the analysis would suggest that we are not over-represented at all when compared to others of a similar size and a similar era around the world. I also agree with those who have looked at the trend of a rising number of electors, with the proportion of electors per MP having risen alongside a rising workload. I am concerned that there is very little justification for reducing the number of MPs.
	I also see no evidence of significant savings. I do not belittle the £12 million that has been discussed over the past hours, when the 50 fewer MPs' salaries and their expenses are set against the cost of boundary reviews. I have seen no analysis of what the continual process of boundary review that the Bill is committing us to will be, but there are marginal savings given that we will still have the same buildings and facilities for Members of the other place-and, of course, we will still have the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which appears to be costing something like an average of £16,000 per Member of Parliament per year. That is an area where some quite sensible savings might be made, but I am sure that is the subject of keener interest at the other end of the building. I would argue that we currently have an incoherent picture and need that bigger picture to be sketched out in more detail, perhaps when the Leader of the House winds up, so that we can properly understand the Government's thinking.
	The other place performs three functions, as I have tended to describe it when I, as a Member of it, went around schools trying to explain how it worked. It has an important representative function-in the parallels that I drew, much like a school council-but it also has very important legislative and executive functions, with people being either members of the Executive or scrutinising them. Your Lordships' House, however, is a much prized and valued revising Chamber. It is the secondary Chamber to the primary one and has fewer functions, so we come back to the question: why should it have more Members when it has less to do? I appreciate that, as we have heard when my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer read out the Code of Conduct and referred to this fact, it is not employment to be a Member of your Lordships' House. Many Members, including me, do other work. Nevertheless, it seems strange that we have many more Members than the other place.
	The workload has also increased in the other place. We have heard quite a lot of that set of arguments and discussions over the past 15 hours but, from my own experience as a recently defeated Member of the other place, the workload was considerable. In terms of constituency correspondence, I had excellent staff helping me out with that just to keep up with the volume of e-mails and letters-happily, we do not really have faxes any more, but there are tweets and Facebook messages-and all sorts now coming through, particularly in a marginal seat. With the introduction of AV, if that is approved in a referendum, we will see more marginal seats and that pressure will only become more acute. Incidentally, I have some concerns about those Members who take a strong role within the Executive. I was proud to be a Minister of State, serving in the Cabinet up until the last election so I had a large role within the Executive but, equally, for those taking a large role in scrutinising the Executive, either on the Opposition Front Bench or chairing Select Committees, the burdens of doing that alongside a highly contested marginal seat with its increased workload makes reducing the number of MPs highly questionable.
	There is a relationship with reform of your Lordships' House. I have been a strong advocate of Lords reform throughout my parliamentary career-and here I may fall out of favour with some of my noble friends, particularly my noble friend who is to follow me and move his own amendment-and I was very active when working with the much-missed Robin Cook, when he was Leader of the other place, in his efforts to move forward on Lords reform. Sadly, we ran aground due to the legendary indecision of my colleagues in the other place.
	My preference now would be for this House to be elected in thirds at each general election to ensure that it does not have a rival mandate, on a regional list basis. Members of an elected second Chamber should not be eligible for re-election. In that way we would not have to resource them for looking after constituents they are pandering to in order to get elected, and they could maintain a relative independence from our friends in the Whips Office, which we know is important here.
	My views have moderated since I became a Member of your Lordships' House in that I am no longer an advocate of a 100 per cent elected Chamber because I have seen the wisdom and expertise of the independent Cross Benches. I particularly enjoyed the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Low, recently. There is therefore a strong case for a 20 per cent element of independent Cross-Benchers appointed by a statutory appointments commission. That is my vision. I am sure that fairly soon, when the Deputy Prime Minister chooses to publish his proposals, we may have a chance to debate them.
	The link with this Bill is that within my own, perhaps weird, preference for how this Chamber should be reformed I also support the notion of a secondary mandate, as put forward by my friend Billy Bragg, who lives down the Dorset coast from me in Burton Bradstock-sometimes known as Burton Billy Braggstock. He advocates that at a general election the votes cast for Members of Parliament should be recycled and used to elect, on the basis of their party allegiance, Members of the second Chamber, thereby enshrining the notion that it is secondary to the primary Chamber and that no one who is a political representative in this House is here by virtue of votes cast for them but by virtue of votes cast for Members of Parliament. It is a fairly ingenious scheme.

Lord Dubs: I am trying to follow my noble friend's argument because until his last comment I was, by and large, in favour of what he said. However, he has now put forward two entirely different models for reforming this place. Which one does he opt for?

Lord Knight of Weymouth: I have been so enthusiastic to move this amendment-I have been waiting for the past 15 hours-but I did not get any sleep and so I am perhaps not being as coherent as I could be. When I said they would be elected in thirds on the basis of a regional list, that regional list would be there by virtue of the secondary mandate and the recycled votes cast for Members of Parliament.

Baroness Smith of Basildon: It may be because of a lack of sleep on my part as well, but I struggle to understand how a 15-year term that is not subject to re-election for this place is in any way democratic.

Lord Knight of Weymouth: My view is that that would achieve good progression from where we are now in terms of appointment. However, it means that people who are here as politicians-as 80 per cent would be under my model-would have some form of mandate through votes cast by the British people. I do not think it defensible over the long term for people like me to come here through the patronage of the Prime Minister or the leader of my party.

Baroness Wall of New Barnet: We have talked a lot over the last 15 hours about the supremacy of the other House. How will that be maintained when we have people in this House who are elected, and who will say, very vociferously, that they have the same rights as the people down the corridor?

Lord Knight of Weymouth: Clearly, the crucial issue for the Members of the other place in supporting any reform here is they do not want to set up a rival Chamber. That is why electing in thirds is part of the answer, because this Chamber would never have a fresh mandate, or a mandate to rival the other place. I am seeking to conclude my remarks, as I have no desire to go on and on. I mention the secondary mandate-my own particular, perhaps weird, preference-because it means that it is highly pertinent how many constituencies there are in a region for how that mandate would work. People do not just vote on national lines, they vote on local ones. Where they put their first preference-if we go to AV-will be highly significant in then deciding how people get into this place. My own favoured position is to some extent being anticipated and skewed by this Bill, and I ask the Leader of the House to reflect on that. I beg to move this amendment.

Lord Brabazon of Tara: I remind the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 63YB or 63YC.

Lord Tyler: I think it is time for somebody on this side of the House to address this issue. I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, both as a Member of Parliament and as a Minister, and therefore listen with great interest to his speech. He was the notable beneficiary of informal AV, you might say-tactical voting-which achieved notable success on I think two occasions in his constituency.
	The noble Lord may be a staunch, consistent and articulate supporter of reform, but I am afraid that he has been led into evil ways by this amendment. He-by implication-and others specifically on the other side of the House have said they are in favour of the sort of reforms in both parts of the Bill, but not yet. This is classic St Augustine: make me virtuous, but not yet, and certainly not before the next general election. I have to warn the noble Lord that he is going to fall into evil company with the refuseniks who are actually opposed to any reform. That is perhaps his purpose, but I do not think it is: I cannot believe he is naive, not given his past record. Let me ask your Lordships to look at his amendment-nothing effectively should happen until the decision is made on the membership and powers of a reformed House of Lords. We know that the draft Bill will come before a joint committee for pre-legislative scrutiny within a matter of weeks now. I do not know precisely when it will be, but relatively soon. We can also anticipate-and rightly so, as the public and both Houses will be interested-that the process of pre-legislative scrutiny will probably take us right through to the Queen's Speech in May 2012. I am willing to suggest to the noble Lord, and I think others will agree, that it is very unlikely that the conditions in his Bill will be reached before the end of 2013. So, nothing can start in terms of the second part of this Bill, which rules it out for the next general election-which I suspect is what some Members on his side of the House want.
	That is absurd. He has not had the advantages I had of listening to the noble Lords on all sides of your Lordships' House over the past five years saying: of course we cannot start on reform of your Lordships' House until the reform of the House of Commons is completed. This is the most absurd vicious circle-we cannot do anything about the Commons until the Lords are done; we cannot do anything about the Lords until the Commons are done; and round we go again. This is a simple and deliberate vicious circle of procrastination. It is also extraordinary that for hours we have listened to arguments on his side of the House that there is too much in this Bill, that it is putting together two important issues. Yet now the noble Lord wants to amalgamate the issues of the reform of this House and the reform of that House. If that is not putting together an impossible duopoly of major constitutional reform, I do not know what is.
	If the noble Lord really wants to make progress and to avoid the company of the undemocratic dinosaurs that seem to inhabit both his Benches and some others, I have to say, surely his amendment is ludicrous. I hope that he is going to withdraw it double quick.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, mine is the second amendment in this group, and under normal circumstances I would have spoken second. However, I was so excited to see the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, stand up-indeed, I can put it this way, thus seeing the whole of the Liberal Benches standing up-that I sat down to recover.
	I should say that there has been absolutely no collusion between me and my noble friend. To me it is obvious that the relationship between the two Houses when discussing the size of the Commons, and we all know about the size of this House, is a very important subject for debate. We are talking essentially about the relationship between the two Houses, and that lies at the heart of our constitution. I am pleased that at least I can claim that we are having this debate in daylight hours. That is by accident rather than by design, but it is a matter worthy of proper consideration by this House, and I am sorry that so few seem to be interested in discussing it.
	It is probably noteworthy to remark that through most of the night in our discussions about the relationship between the two Houses, we have been talking about a cull of 50 Members of Parliament. The world knows already, because it has been reported in a number of newspapers, that while we were discussing a matter of crucial importance to the House of Commons, beds were being arranged in this House so that Members of the House of Lords, while their House was debating a cull of Members of the House of Commons, could rest peacefully asleep. I think that that is an insult to the other House and that if the reverse were to apply so that beds were provided in the House of Commons while they were debating our future, and most of the Commons was asleep, we would quite properly have something to say about it, and indeed it would have been our duty to do so. I mention that not just in passing because it says something about how flippantly this House is considering a crucial matter affecting the future of the House of Commons.
	The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will doubtless say that my amendment is inadequate and badly drafted. I freely admit that, but I tried hard to find a proper form of words that would be in order and which said what I want to say, which is simply that it really is a bizarre set of circumstances that the elected House of Commons-the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is very keen on an elected House of Lords-is to be reduced from 650 to 600 while simultaneously there is a huge increase in the number of unelected Members of the House of Lords. To give the House the figures so that at least they are on the record, the Commons is to be reduced by 50 to give it a membership of 600, but since the general election this House has had new Members announced to the tune of 117, with the current size of this place at 792. So, on this Government's watch we are planning to take 50 Members out of the House of Commons and already-each day the number increases-there are 792 Members of this House. Any objective observer would say that that is an absolutely bizarre state of affairs.
	I should like the Leader of the House to make this point to Nick Clegg, who I understand is the mastermind behind a lot of these constitutional reforms. More pertinently, however, he has stated repeatedly in what is his-I am sure to be regretted-phrase that this is the greatest reform since 1832, that the three Bills comprising this one, which will reduce the size of the House of Commons and provide for a referendum, the next one which will provide for fixed-term Parliaments, and the one after which will provide for reform of this House, are all ingeniously and brilliantly interrelated. Can someone explain to me the interrelationship between reducing the elected House by 50 and increasing the appointed House by 117 in a matter of nine months? It is beyond me, but there are, no doubt, bigger brains than mine working these things out in the depths of the Constitution Unit under the controlling guidance of Mr Nick Clegg.
	It is not just me; this House is beginning to recognise that it is too big. The Hunt report, if I can call it that, which was set up by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is entitled Members Leaving the House. It is quite clear that it is too big and that we have to find mechanisms for reducing the size. I shall read paragraph 67 of this report by an all-party Committee, which is relevant to this amendment:
	"Whilst we cannot recommend that there should be a moratorium on new appointments to the House - since, while the purpose of the House is to provide expertise, we must ensure that that expertise is refreshed and kept up to date - we do urge that restraint should be exercised by all concerned"-
	that really means the Government-
	"in the recommendation of new appointments to the House, until such time as debate over the size of membership is conclusively determined".
	That is a Committee of this House saying that restraint should be exercised so far as new Members are concerned.
	I have already said that we have had 117 new Members since the general election, but it is going to get worse, or better, whichever your view of this is, because of this document, which will be enshrined in constitutional history The Coalition: our programme for government-I love it. As every day goes past, the inadequacy of this document becomes clearer, but we regard it as some sort of a statement of objectives and intent as things stand at the moment. In the section dealing with constitutional reform, the coalition document states that it is going to reform the House of Lords and that:
	"In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election".
	I would like the Leader of the House, to tell us when he winds up how many more Peers he thinks will be required in order to do what the coalition document says and what the split between the various political parties will be. Can I suggest that it would make his life simpler if instead of basing it on the results of the previous general election, he bases it on the figures that we are being given by current opinion polls, which suggest that there are far too many Liberal Peers in this House? That might be a consideration that he might look at.
	The reason why I think this is an important point in relation to my amendment is that one of the consequences of the imbalance between the sizes of the two Houses is that it is having a dramatic effect on the political balance in this House now, as is the mere fact of the coalition, which alters the whole way in which this House is likely to operate. I think we have seen that demonstrated this past 24 hours or so. The Government are in control of both Houses, which has not happened in all the time that I have been in this House, and it was never envisaged that it would ever happen again.
	At present, the Government have 40 per cent of the votes in this House, including the Cross Benchers. That was the figure that I was able to get from the Library figures for a week last Monday. As your Lordships will know, they are published on a regular basis. We have had 14 new Peers since we started debating Part 2 of the Bill last Monday, and I think we are expecting some more later today, provided that this day's work completes before they are due to be introduced. The political balance is changing all the time to the Government's advantage. As I have already said, we are looking at reform in the round, or should be, if we follow Nick Clegg's dictum. That is a factor that needs to be considered if this House is to continue as a revising Chamber.
	I shall conclude with one thought about a factor still not considered properly between the two Houses.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: As the noble Lord is passing from the topic he has been dealing with, I wonder whether his memory is as long as mine. He will remember that when in opposition the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats agreed upon a way of dealing with the problem he is referring to when we were an appointed House. It was that the Liberal Democrats would help Labour to exclude hereditary Peers provided that we were given life Peers in rough proportion to the way we had done in the previous general election. Is he aware that having agreed to that, when we asked the then leader of his party what had happened to the promise that had been made, we were told "You can't get back your Peers because you aren't voting with us. You aren't voting the right way."? As a result of that, the leaders of my party and his were not on speaking terms for six months because of the betrayal by his party.
	Secondly, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, recalls that I was independent adviser on constitutional affairs to the right honourable Jack Straw and Mr Michael Wills, as he then was, trying to get constitutional reform through. Does he recall that the pathetic Bill that was eventually produced, causing me to resign because it was worthless, was a ragbag Bill full of many more issues than this Bill, which deals with only two? Therefore, does he not think that it is a little arrogant for him to condescend in the way that he does towards the coalition?

Lord Strathclyde: Before the noble Lord replies to that, can my noble friend tell me whether his memory serves him sufficiently well to know whether the Chief Whip in the House of Lords at that time was none other than the noble Lord, Lord Grocott?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My noble friend is perfectly right, and I would like to pay one compliment to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott: I would never remotely regard him as interested in constitutional reform.

Lord Grocott: I think that last remark was a little unkind, as I have been here throughout these debates and we have just had the odd guest appearance from the noble Lord, Lord Lester. So far as his criticism of the Labour Government is concerned, in terms of numbers of Liberal Peers, if he checks the figures, I think he will find that the Liberals have done very nicely thank you. It used to irritate me intensely, as it did many members of the Labour Party, that every new appointee to the House of Lords under the previous Government, whether they were former Conservative Cabinet Ministers, members of the Liberal Democrat Party or, indeed, members of the Labour Party or Cross Benchers, were all referred to indiscriminately as "Tony's cronies". If they were his cronies, all I can say is that I could have done with a few more of them on our Benches when I was trying to marshal the Government's business through with just 30 per cent of the votes. I make no complaint about that; I think it is right that this House should not have a government majority. As for the recollection of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, if anyone communicated to me that we must tell the Liberals to vote with us, if such an agreement existed, I can only say "Tell the Liberals to vote with us, and then they will get more Peerages" is not a message that was communicated to me as Government Chief Whip, and I think it should have been if it were in existence.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: That is not what I said. What I said was that there was a deal in opposition between the two opposition parties about the proportion of Liberal Democrats. Under the Cook-Maclennan agreement of 1996-my noble friend Lord Maclennan is next to me and I was a member of the negotiating committee-it was a term of the agreement, among others, that having co-operated to remove the hereditary Peers, because the Liberal Democrats were 40 per cent hereditary, whereas Labour was less than 10, it was necessary to get the rough balance right with the Liberal Democrats. Robin Cook agreed that that should be so.
	Having then collaborated, the hereditary Peers were excluded with a cruelty that I did not support. Having done that, we expected to get back to around 40 per cent because that represented our rough balance in the previous general election, and so we waited. I am not talking about now: I am talking about at that period after Tony Blair won.
	Tony Blair was to be commended for the way in which he handled his own appointments. But I am saying that we were not able to get back our percentage and when the Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, was asked why, she said-not publicly-to our leader, "You see, you haven't behaved properly. You haven't voted with us". It is that which we found unacceptable and which led to a falling out between the two parties. All I am saying to the noble Lord is that he gives a benign view of history. The history was not at all benign.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, my confusion is now explained in that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is referring to 1996. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was accusing me of being Chief Whip at the time. I became Chief Whip in 2002. So I suggest that the two wings of the coalition need to get their arguments co-ordinated. I have pretty well concluded what I intended to say. I have been brief, apart from interventions, which I welcome.
	The argument is simple. Before we cull Members of the House of Commons, there should be far greater clarity about the total membership of the House of Lords. That would not be-

Lord McAvoy: I am sorry to intervene on my noble friend. I was thinking about the last few seconds of what he was saying. Does he not think that he should at the very least expect an apology from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for the spraying of, quite frankly, innuendo and mistruths, and for getting it wrong? In his anxiety to smear anyone who opposes what he is saying, he just sprays innuendo and things that are not true. He should offer an apology.

Lord Grocott: I am not really in a fit state to respond: I am still recovering from the blow that was delivered by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I shall conclude my remarks on that basis. I think that what I propose, although not word perfect, is eminent common sense. This being a commonsensical House, I am sure that it will be approved with acclaim.

Lord Dubs: I have waited all night to make a small contribution to this debate, so I am glad to have the chance to do it. However, I am somewhat confused. I agreed with the amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Knight, but I did not agree with his arguments. As far as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is concerned, I did not agree with his amendment, but I agreed with his arguments. So I am finding that somewhat confusing. But let me see if I can disentangle it.
	It is important to debate this matter, because any reform of the House of Commons calls into question the relationship between the two Houses. Clearly, making as dramatic a change as the Government are proposing in this Bill to the House of Commons will call into question the way in which the two Houses can coexist sensibly once the reform has been introduced and proposed. So it is not unreasonable for my noble friend Lord Knight to put forward his amendment.
	The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is concerned that this will kick the whole thing into the long grass. I am bound to say that House of Lords reform has been in the long grass for a long time anyway. I always argued for elections consistently before I was in this House and I still do. But I do not interpret the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Knight as one which necessarily kicks it into the long grass. We can talk about the details, but I do not think that he needs to do that. Having said that the relationship between the two Houses is crucial and that, therefore, any reformed House will have to be looked at in terms of how it relates to the Commons, it is right that we should debate it as regards this Bill. I look forward to the Government's proposals on Lords reform. They will be in the form of a draft. I hope that we can have them soon in order that we can discuss them and consider them.
	In the mean time, I want to deal with some of the issues that my noble friend Lord Knight brought into play. I thought that everything was fine when he talked about elections, but I worried a bit about one-third, one-third, one-third, giving a 15-year mandate-non-renewable-because the benefit of an election is accountability. If one is not accountable there is not much point in being elected, as I see it. The worst argument about the Billy Bragg proposals or the mandate is that it gives the political parties a complete stranglehold of the membership of this House. If after every election the membership is adjusted or changed to reflect the popular votes for the Commons, the parties can get rid of all the people who are dissidents or not sycophantic, so not many of us will be left.

Lord Knight of Weymouth: I am grateful to my noble friend for allowing me to clarify that regional lists would be published in advance of the election so that when electors are voting constituency by constituency for their Members of Parliament, they can see the impact of their vote in terms of who is nominated by each party. I accept that it is a progression from where we are now in terms of appointment, but in many ways there is plenty about this House that we would want to preserve. I am seeking some kind of electoral mandate for the political representatives in this House without a massive change in the character of the House.

Lord Dubs: I understand what my noble friend is saying but I am still pretty concerned about it. When we talk about all these regional lists being prepared, it is fairly easy at parliamentary constituency level for a local party to choose a candidate who reflects the views of the constituency, and so on. Regional lists tend to be an opportunity for the party machine to dominate, which is true of all the parties. I am not happy about it. Even if you publish the regional list in advance, I am afraid that the electorate will not be terribly impressed by seeing a list of people and will say, "Gosh, that will affect how I vote for the MP". I do not think it will be like that. They will choose the MP and then the regional list will be a by-product. Because it is a by-product, I am not happy about it.

Baroness Smith of Basildon: I should like to develop that point about the 15-year electoral term and my intervention on my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth about my grave concerns. I entirely share the issue about it being election rather than accountability. Does my noble friend accept that something like this is really just a sop to those who want elections? It is not accountability or a democratic mandate. It is just a case of you have your election, so it is okay, and it will make no difference at all. This House would be less accountable and less representative than it is now.

Lord Dubs: I am not sure that I entirely follow my noble friend's argument. My case against a 15-year term is that once one is elected by whatever method, even a better one than my noble friend has put forward, one is there and can do what one likes without being answerable. I am not happy about that, which is why I would prefer shorter mandates that are subject to re-election.
	My key point is that we need to know a little more about the Government's plans for the future of this House before we can be happy about what they intend to do to the Commons. My noble friend Lord Grocott and I have some differences in policy. We have no differences in personal terms but we differ occasionally on policy. Unless there is some way round my noble friend's amendment, we will have a much larger House of Commons, possibly by nearly 150 Members, than we have now, unless we can significantly reduce the membership of this House in the mean time. That is a pretty complicated set of additional thoughts to add to his amendment. He did not go through that in great detail so I do not see his amendment being effective, much as I like his arguments to justify it.
	I do not want to talk any more about this. I have said that I am not happy about a secondary mandate, but I believe that the relationship between the two Houses is crucial and we look to the Government's proposals for the future of this House to see how they stack up against what is going on in this Bill. Better still, we should delay consideration of this part of the Bill until we can see what the Government have in mind for the future of this House.

Lord Prescott: My Lords, I must add my name to the list of those confused after the introduction of the amendments. I approached it in a simple way: that this was an opportunity to delay while we had further discussion to find an agreement between the two sides of this House on the size of the Commons, the powers, and the Boundary Commission. All of those are legitimate arguments. If we introduce the idea of the reform of the House of Lords, it will get even more complicated.
	I was a Member of the House of Commons for 40 years and I have heard the debates about the Lords. I am against reform of the Lords. I do not mind changing its powers; I was very happy to get rid of the hereditaries; but I do not want more powers simply given to the Lords. An elected process would certainly do that. I have had the argument with my noble friend Lord Knight for a long time. He wants a second Chamber with extra powers, which will be in conflict with the elected body. That is a simple enough principle to me, so I cannot support him. My noble friend Lord Grocott talked about the sizes of both Chambers, but both amendments will complicate the main issue of whether there can be a decision about what the Government intend to do about the size of the Lords. Having heard all the debates about whether the size of the House of Lords should be 600, 500, or remain as it is, I will be clear: I believe that it should stay as it is.
	Some powerful figures were given by my noble friend Lord Kinnock about the changing role of Members of the House of Commons-the other place, I should say. That is undoubtedly true since 1970, when my noble friend Lord Kinnock and I came into the Commons. He talked about the Member of Parliament before him who used to have one meeting a month. I took the place of a man called Commander Percy who had exactly the same role. He made a rather royal visit to Hull now and again, but nothing more was done. He thought he was popular and just came up for the election. Clearly, you could not get away with that now; it has changed. My noble friend Lord Kinnock pointed out that the number of Members has increased since then by about 4 per cent, and the workload by 25 per cent-anyone who has done it knows that that is at least the increase in the effort and time that a Member of Parliament has to put in.
	In those circumstances, no one has justified why we should reduce the number from 650; I do not think we should. We can change, reform, or even begin an analysis of, what the job of a Member of Parliament should be. As we heard, that is not easy and it changes from constituency to constituency. It is about the character of the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituents. I do not mind if we analyse that, but the Government have decided that they will reduce the number by 50 but give us no rational explanation.
	We would have exactly the same arguments with the amendments to the House of Lords. Although there has been lots of debate about the House of Lords and what the reform should be, there has been very little debate about the reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. Of course, the papers have said that we should get rid of them, we should reduce them, and that seems to be the rationale for the Government's argument. It is popular to say that we should reduce the number of Members of Parliament, but no justification has been made for that.
	We have asked time and time again: how did you arrive at the figure of 75,000 per constituency, what size constituencies should be and how the number of MPs should be increased or decreased in that process? An independent body has been doing that. The conclusion in this House is that if the Government decide that there should be this amount and then tell the commission to get on with it, they are making a political decision for political advantage. That is inevitably the definition of it. Most independent analysis has shown that that is the case. The justification argued was that there was a democratic mandate. It is already clear that the number was not in the Tory manifesto nor the Liberal manifesto. We are talking about a coalition agreement which was not endorsed by the electorate. So any democratic mandate does not come from simply putting it to the electorate. The principle was there but not the actual justification of these figures. The argument put by our Front Bench is right. It gives them an opportunity to say, "Yes, you can have the referendum on the day you want, but why do you not split the Bill into two parts?". There has been lots of talk here about the usual channels working out what those agreements are. That is how we have normally settled business, whether it is in this place or the other place. I think people should be open to the opportunity. But the Government do not look as if they are interested in pursuing that. We wait to see any further movement on their behalf or if we are on this kind of roll of fighting it out-who is going to stick out, who is going to go longest, who is going to blink. We have had an awful lot of that in the House of Commons. I can recall times when we have gone for 24 hours voting on trade union legislation. Perhaps it seems odd for me to say that-perhaps it sounds macho rather than good sense-but it was a process that we got locked into and it appears that we are locked in almost to the same now. There are two positions: you either accept one or the other, or the Government have the power and the majority in both places just to impose that.
	Let me make this point to the government Front Benches. I think it is important to accept that in all these arguments it is a matter of trust. There can be disagreements but we try to find a way through them. As someone said during this debate, this is the House of negotiation-we find a way forward. I think it is probably one of the main contributions we can make. Trust is absolutely important. I have experience in these matters in the Council of Europe. The council was referred to earlier by the noble Lord. He said that countries which want to come into the Council of Europe have to reach certain democratic criteria. In recent years, members from the central European countries, which were previously communist, have wanted to become, if you like, more socially democratic or European and to join the Council of Europe. The council lays down what it thinks are the standards for democracy and the countries are expected to observe them and agree to them. It appoints monitors to go and see that they are carrying out their democratic obligations to be a member of the Council of Europe.
	I was appointed to be the monitor to Armenia. It was a communist state which was now claiming to be social democrat. However, it had the old communist structure where the courts were very accountable to the Government, the Government controlled the police, there were no democratic freedoms for the press and the Opposition had no role and were given no responsibilities or powers. When the presidential election occurred three years ago there were accusations from the Opposition, who saw no possibility of getting an agreement with Government. They had no trust in the Government and would often resort to the argument, "There is corruption and you cannot trust the Government". When the President was elected by 51 per cent there was a mass rally in which 100 people were thrown into jail; 10 people were killed and the people who were demonstrating were accused of undermining and threatening the state. It became a security matter. I was then sent to see if I could find an agreement. After long talks we managed to get the 100 people out of the jail, change the press laws and reduce the criminal laws-they reformed the law so you could have a protest and the courts were made more accountable.
	I will not go into all the details but effectively the Opposition had no trust. At the heart of that argument there was a Government simply believing that they had the majority. The coalition of two parties with the majority in the assembly took the view that it was democratically correct to impose their solution without having to consult the Opposition. That is a lack of trust. It leads to a violent reaction. It leads to the corruption of the democratic process. I am not saying the UK is the same as Armenia but there are some similarities that cause some concern, bearing in mind our long tradition of democracy. I am proud of my country. These countries look to us as a good example of democratic practice. We find now that we have a coalition that is prepared to impose an agreement that has not been agreed by the electorate. It is not prepared to consider finding an agreement. That is undermining trust in the democratic process itself.
	I notice that the Government have not answered the question put. What if we become the Government and there are demands on our side-I would not be surprised if I was leading them myself-saying, "Right, it is our turn now. We've got the power. The door has been opened for us. Let us change it around"? The poor old 15-year mandate might get us into a bit of a problem, because we will have changed it down there, but we stay up here on the old political system. That will cause tensions, especially as the Lords, despite the conventions, seems to be nibbling at the idea that it can deal with financial matters. We are dealing with a real problem here. At the heart of it is trust.
	I say to the Government: if you go along this road, do not be surprised if there are voices saying, "If they can do it, we will do it", although I know that it is in the nature of the Labour Party to say, "We cannot do that. We are democratic". We would not be stupid enough not to do it.
	Leaving that aside, trust is threatened here. If you open the door with a precedent that any Government who have the majority can do as they wish on constitutional matters without agreement or a sense of consensus, other Governments may be tempted to do the same. I do not think that that will do our democratic process any good. I ask the Government yet again to consider the position put from our Front Bench: can the usual channels have a bit more consultation? We have had bigger differences than this before and have found agreement, but this one is especially difficult. We are talking about constitutional issues. Do not establish the precedent that the Government, simply because they have a majority through a coalition, can enforce things. That is the difficulty that we face, and I hope that the Leader of the House will give further thought to it.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth that it is not sensible to set about reforming the House of Commons without considering the implications for your Lordships' House and for the relationship between the two Houses in our bicameral Parliament. For example, if membership of the House of Commons is to be reduced by 50 MPs, and its already all-too-feeble capacity to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government to account is yet further enfeebled by the reduction in its forces, there must be implications for the workload of your Lordships' House.
	It will be even more incumbent on us to ensure that there is a check on the Executive, that legislation is genuinely scrutinised and seriously challenged when it ought to be. That will be very awkward within the pattern of our Parliament, in which the other place is elected but this place is not. We are always diffident about challenging the propositions of the elected Government, particularly propositions that have been approved by the elected Chamber. None the less, if the elected Chamber itself becomes that much less capable of doing the job that the people of this country expect it to do, the duty falls the more on your Lordships' House. These are difficult, sensitive and contentious issues, but we need to think about reform of one House in relationship to the role of and possible reforms to the other.
	The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is wrong to suggest that we are thereby in some sort of vicious circle so that you cannot do anything: you cannot reform one House until you have reformed the other. The logic of this conundrum is that we have to think about reform of the two Houses together. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth for introducing that dimension to our debate. Whether you consider the constitution of our country as an organism or a mechanism-whichever metaphor you prefer-the fact is that its parts are interdependent. It is not just the two Houses of Parliament which are interdependent; there are relationships with other parts of our constitution which equally stand to be destabilised if you attempt to reform one part on its own without considering the wider implications.
	I do not think that you can set about a programme of reform of the Westminster Parliament without also thinking about the responsibilities of those who are elected by our fellow citizens to represent them in the European Parliament and what the working relationships between those two Parliaments should be. I am even more sure that you cannot think about reform of either House of this Parliament without also thinking about the relationship between the Houses of this Parliament and the devolved institutions of government in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and, if the Liberal Democrats were to have their way, possibly a devolved assembly in England too. We should always be mindful of the implications of what we do here for local government and the role of local authorities, which has been so much attenuated and enfeebled over the years. As we think about constitutional reform in a constructive and responsible way, we need to think not only about what we expect the devolved institutions-the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly-to do but about what we expect elected local government to do. All these pieces of the constitution need to be understood in relationship to each other.
	The best is the enemy of the good. If you try to design some grand masterplan for constitutional reform, you will fail-it will not work. No one is possessed of such wisdom that they can devise the ideal scheme and, even if they were able to do so, there would be politicians who did not share that idealism and would not be agreeable to the reforms that were intended. You have to proceed with constitutional reform pragmatically, incrementally, respectfully, sensitively and gradually. That is the way that you get progress towards constitutional reform in this country. That does not mean that you should think about only one piece of the constitution at a time; you have to think about the pattern of relationships.
	If we were to have an elected House of Lords-I would not call it a House of Lords; it would be an elected second Chamber, and the existing House of Lords would have been abolished-along the lines that my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth would like, the consequences for the other place would be seismic. Colossal changes would inevitably follow. We cannot predict what they would be, but we can be certain that the conventions that govern the relations between the two Houses at the moment would be out of the window. Indeed, the report of the committee on conventions chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, a report that was endorsed by both Houses of Parliament, stated fairly and squarely that we should not expect the existing conventions to survive the creation of an elected second Chamber. We have seen in the past 15 or 17 hours, or however many hours it has been, that the existing conventions are already under some stress and strain. We could not expect them to survive.
	I do not say that the relationship between two elected Houses in the United Kingdom would become exactly similar to the relationship of stress, frequent antagonism and impasse that we see between the House of Representatives in the American Congress and the US Senate, but it would be much more similar because, of course, an elected second Chamber would be seen to have legitimacy, it would be proud of it and anyone elected to it who was worth their salt would certainly want to exercise the authority that electoral legitimacy gave to an elected House. We need to realise that there is much more instability, and there are much larger implications, that would potentially arise even from the carrying of the reform of the House of Commons alone that the coalition Government have embarked upon.
	I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Grocott for focusing our attention particularly on the size of this House, appointed as it is and as I personally hope it will remain, because the relative sizes of the two Houses are going to be important. If we continue with an appointed House of Lords and its role is advisory, it is perhaps less significant if it is larger in numbers than if you have an elected second Chamber. Possibly, arguably, an appointed House of Lords with a role to advise benefits from having a large membership, because there are more people within an appointed House who have the ability to offer advice that will be useful to the parliamentary system and to the country as a whole.
	None the less, I take the point that my noble friend Lord Grocott has put forward: there has to be some limitation to this accretion of patronage, this growth willy-nilly of an appointed House, based upon no principle at all. Well, there is a spurious principle, as I believe it to be, that has been adumbrated by the coalition; in the coalition agreement it put forward as a constitutional principle that it would be right for the membership of an appointed House increasingly to be reflective of the political strengths of the parties following the previous election in the other place. That is a very dangerous doctrine and it ought to be questioned. While it apparently has a kind of democratic legitimacy about it, in practice it would mean that the power of the government Whips, which in the opinion of many of us is already excessive in the elected House, would increasingly be extended into the appointed House. We have already seen that process through the creation of the coalition. We have seen the unfortunate state of affairs, deeply damaging to the character, to the deliberation and to the capacity of this House to do its job, when the coalition parties together have a majority that they are willing to use ruthlessly, as we have seen in the proceedings on this Bill. I do not think that we want to legitimise that unfortunate development any further. We ought not to accept the doctrine offered in the coalition agreement; it needs to be considered very sceptically, and I personally take a pretty jaundiced view of it.
	If the second Chamber were to be elected, there would be a frontal challenge to the other place on the part of the newly elected and democratically legitimised second Chamber. That would be the case even under my noble friend Lord Knight's scheme whereby the elected second Chamber was elected by thirds-the challenge would mount cumulatively. It would also be the case even if we were to have an only partially elected second Chamber.
	As all noble Lords who have thought about this very knotty question of Lords reform know well, we are playing with fire and we need to think carefully about what we are doing. For the time being, though, and in the context of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, I take the wise counsel of my noble friends Lord Knight and Lord Grocott that you cannot sensibly or profitably attempt to think about reform of the House of Commons in isolation from the reform of this House and without also considering the implications for the relationship between the two Houses.

Baroness Smith of Basildon: My Lords, I rise with some relief. After 19 hours of debate, I wondered if we would ever get to this amendment, which I particularly wanted to comment on. It is worth noting that the last time I spent a whole night in Committee in Parliament was in the other place on the National Minimum Wage Bill in, I think, 1998. In that debate, Conservative MPs, who did not want to see a minimum wage in this country, spoke at length through the night over several nights in Committee to try to stop the minimum wage from being introduced, or at least to delay it. I remember-I would say "fondly", but it is not fondly at all-a debate around the location of the word "and" in the legislation. That kind of debate makes a mockery of Sittings in either place. However, the debate that we have had now for, I must admit, a very long time has in no way replicated that debate then. The quality of the debate tonight and the seriousness with which these issues have been taken does this House great credit. It is doing what it is best at: scrutinising legislation.
	I was pleased to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. While I do not agree with much of what he said, the fact that he said it is very important. I am surprised, for a piece of legislation we have been told is so important that it cannot be split into two Bills of a more sensible size for scrutiny, that so few Government Members have attended the debate over the past 19 hours. That contrasts unfavourably with this side of the Chamber where we have heard a considerable amount of intelligent debate. It has been doing what this House is meant to do.
	Broadly, I welcome the two amendments. My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth has done his best to talk me out of it, but if I concentrate on his amendment rather than what he has been saying in the Committee, it will be easier to look to that. I have great interest in what my noble friend Lord Grocott has been saying in support of his amendment, but I might put a point to him which, if he is able to answer it when he winds up, would be helpful. What has attracted me to both amendments is that they propose a rationale for the number of Members of the other place.
	At Second Reading I spoke about this issue, and I have to say that I was quite shocked at the comment of the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to the effect that the reason for 600 Members of Parliament was that it was a "nice round number". The comment was quite funny and it worked well in the Chamber, but when you are scrutinising legislation that will make a major constitutional difference, that just does not do it for me. I expect a little more thought and explanation. I think that the Government still have time to come forward and give reasons, and indeed there may be a logic and an understanding that have passed me and other Members on this side of the Committee by, but I think that your Lordships have been quite dismayed at the lack of clarity of reasoning for and justification of the figure of 600. In a brief point I made earlier, I said that the Government are exasperated at the fact that this debate is continuing. They could end that exasperation by giving a simple reason.
	Both the amendments before us seek validity in the kinds of figures they propose. That makes them both attractive to me and certainly worth discussing. My noble friend Lord Howarth made a very important point in the comments he made just now. Our constitutional democracy is based on the relationship between the various parts of the legislature. It is not just about the relationship between the other place and your Lordships' House, but also about the relationship between Parliament as a whole and the Executive. Those points have not been teased out or addressed fully in the proposals that have been put forward by the Government. My concern, which runs contrary to how the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, interprets this, is that tinkering at the edges and making changes that will have a fundamental impact while not assessing at the same time that impact on other parts of Parliament, does both this Chamber and the other place a disservice. It does not reflect an understanding of the impact that it can have.
	We have all seen the changes that have been made where it has been understood that there will be one impact, but that it has been far greater on this and the other place. I am concerned that we have not been given the explanations that are due to us. These two amendments offer some kind of grounding and validity for a number.
	We have debates around the issue of the implications of reducing the size of the other place that have centred on MPs' workloads and financial issues. Indeed, I strongly recall the Prime Minister, David Cameron, making the case that it would save money to reduce the Members of the other place. He said that you can get more for less. In the end, you do not get more for less, and I think it does a disservice to this House to try to pretend that somehow we can squeeze more out of every Member of Parliament. My experience after 13 years in the other place is that the vast majority of Members of Parliament-there may be exceptions that others can perhaps identify-really value their role and treasure their relationship with their constituents. They work extraordinarily hard. To pick an arbitrary number and say that we will reduce by 10 per cent and go down to 600 Members undermines and undervalues the role that they play. If I was a Member of the other place at this time, I would rightly feel somewhat aggrieved by that.
	A point has been made about constituency issues. An MP's relationship with their constituency is a precious one. We have heard in some of the debates tonight former Members of the other place speaking most affectionately about their constituencies and the links they still have to them. Those links continued for many years after they left the other place. Like me, many have taken their title from the constituencies that they represented. This is not a transitory, passing relationship; this is something embedded into a Member of Parliament. It is also embedded into those constituents. One part of my former constituency, over three sets of boundary changes, had been represented by three different MPs in three different constituencies. They had been moved from constituency to constituency in each set of boundary changes, and there was a lack of identity for that area. That is grossly unfair. If we propose, as in the Bill, to have boundary changes for almost every election, that sense of identity, belonging and engagement with the political process will be lost.
	We talk about the big society. The most important part of the big society is that constituents and the public feel engaged with the political process and able to contribute. If they do not recognise their constituency or their MP, they can hardly engage with the political process. The idea that we can draw lines on maps so that there are equal numbers and equal representation does not understand at all the relationship between the MP and the constituency, or the constituent and the MP.
	A point I made on Second Reading was that the size of the other place has an impact on the size and power of the Executive. If we are to reduce the overall number of Members of Parliament but not the size of the Executive, it would increase the power of the Executive. I do not think that is what the Prime Minister meant when he said that we would get more for less and costs would be reduced. It misleads people and really is unfair. It will not have that effect but it will increase the power of the Executive, which will be larger as a proportion of the Houses of Parliament as a whole. The noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Grocott, are, I think, moving away from plucking a number from thin air. If I understood where the figure of 600 came from, I might be more tolerant and give it greater validity. Not understanding it, and in the absence of any rationale, it is difficult to understand what the point of it is.
	The matter has been fundamentally understated in three areas: the relationship between the constituent and the Member of Parliament; the relationship between the two Houses; and the relationship between the Government, or the Executive, and Parliament. Both amendments, in their own way, seek to fill that vacuum to bring a rationale to the number of Members of Parliament that we should have in the other place. I am, perhaps, critical of these amendments and it would be helpful if noble Lords could respond at the end of the debate. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, says that instead of having a number, we should insert that the number of Members of the other place should be,
	"decided once the membership and powers of a reformed House of Lords have been agreed by both Houses of Parliament".
	What about the powers of the other place as well? It is all very well to talk about the powers of this House, which will be affected by the number of Members in another place. However, there is also an argument that the powers of the other place are affected by the number of Members.
	To enlarge on that, let us look at what the role of an MP is. We have not, as far as I have heard, discussed that so far in these debates. I have not heard the whole 19 hours, but I have heard a great proportion of them. What is the role of an MP? There is an argument that the scrutiny role of the other place has changed. It can be argued that Select Committees have greater influence and power. Chairs of Select Committees are now paid and selection has changed from being by appointment by the Whips. However, it can also be argued, with much legitimacy, that the growth of an MP's work as a representative of their constituency has grown enormously. Look at the number of letters and the issues being raised-life is more complex for people.
	When I was first elected in 1997, the main issues that were brought to me included hospital waiting lists, although that died away over the course of the previous Government. There was a complexity to the issues towards the end of my time in the House of Commons. Life was complicated for people and they sometimes had difficulty managing. The first person from whom they sought help, support and advice was their Member of Parliament. That work was increasing significantly. If we think back to the 1800s, most Members of Parliament did their correspondence by hand. I am the very proud owner of several House of Commons passes from when members of the public were given a pass to attend the House of Commons that was not a printed one-issued in their thousands-but had been handwritten by individual MPs on headed notepaper. That was how one gained access to the House of Commons.
	In the 1800s Members would stand up in the Committee Corridor at the other end of the building and write to their correspondents by hand. They were able to do that. Then we moved into the 20th century. MPs got typewriters and some of them had secretaries. Could any Member of the other place now cope with their workload and correspondence without a fully staffed office, computers and technology? They could not. The volume of work that comes in is matched by the volume that goes out. One way to quantify this would be to look at the postage bill for Members of the other place. You would find that the number of letters in response to constituents has grown enormously.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Does a large amount of that work not come from people who are not even on the electoral roll?

Baroness Smith of Basildon: Certainly, there is an element of that. It is a real problem, especially when we are looking at the size of constituencies. I took, in the end, to not checking whether someone was on the electoral roll. If someone needs help and you represent their area, you should seek to help that person. However, there is an issue about the number of people who, for various reasons, do not register as electors. They are still entitled to representation. I do not know of any MP who would turn somebody away because they were not on the electoral roll. They would still undertake that work.
	At the same time that Members of the other place are undertaking this increased workload, they see their resources to do that work reduced. Under the new regime of IPSA, had I remained a Member of Parliament, I would have lost half of or one member of staff. I would have had to move my office to smaller accommodation. I can assure you it was not salubrious in the first place. Members have also lost the communications allowance for communicating with constituents. There are fewer resources and more work. That makes it harder for MPs to fulfil that scrutiny role, which is very important. If we are looking to change, by increasing or reducing, the number of Members of the other place, we need to look at their powers and responsibility.
	When I was first elected, I used to describe my work as a Member of the other place as being in thirds. A third of a Member of Parliament's work was constituency casework from the individual people who came for help, support and advice. Another third was the work of an advocate for the constituency if resources or support for industry, local charities, youth work and so on were needed. The third role, which was informed by the other two, was that of scrutiny and work in Committee, on legislation and on Select Committees. Towards the end of my time, I felt that it was getting harder to maintain that final third, which is crucial. MPs are there to be legislators, not caseworkers. However, it was getting harder to maintain because of the volume of work where people needed the help that it was an MP's duty to provide. To reduce the number of Members of Parliament under those circumstances does not make sense at all.
	If we were to reduce the size of the House of Commons, it would have an impact on this House. Your Lordships' role of scrutiny becomes all the more important if Members of the other place are finding it harder to fulfil their duties and obligations on scrutiny. I recall a number of occasions when Members of Parliament whom I held in the highest regard told me that they were not able to take part in a debate or go on a committee because they had their casework to do. That is not to criticise the individual MPs because their responsibilities were to their constituencies, but it is a sad indictment that Members of the other place who want to involve themselves in scrutiny feel so much under pressure from individuals' problems and issues in their constituency that they are unable to do so.
	One of my worries is that it is harder for Members of Parliament who have the most demanding constituencies-I think it is agreed across all parties that the issues and problems presented in some constituencies are more demanding and time-consuming than in others-to take on a scrutiny role. It is also harder for them to take on a ministerial or Select Committee role. Would we find ourselves in a position where only the Members of the other place who have the lightest casework loads and the less problematic constituencies would be able to serve as Ministers or take on important roles in Select Committees? That worries me because it is not the primary function of a Member of Parliament.
	The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, causes me some concern around the issue of the powers of the House of Lords. He is right that we are interdependent; I do not think that we can look at the relationship between the two Houses without taking into account the powers and memberships involved. We should not make proposals on size without considering responsibilities, and that goes for changes to or reform of either place. Membership is dependent on function.
	My noble friend-I use that word advisedly but it may not last for long-almost lost me in the debate on his suggestion that there should be 15-year terms and that your Lordships' House should be elected in thirds. That would be an abuse and misuse of what could loosely be called democracy but is not democracy at all. As my response to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, pointed out, democracy is about two things: first, it is about the powers that a body or an individual has; secondly, it is about accountability and how they use those powers. That is absolutely fundamental. I feel very strongly that if we were to have a 15-year term in which someone never sought re-election, there would be no accountability; they would never be accountable to anyone. To me that is a sop to elections and democracy which insults the term.
	The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made a point, with which I have some sympathy, about the relative sizes of the two Chambers. I bring him back to the point about whether it is the size or the powers that matter. I still think the powers and responsibilities of the House should come before size. It is not about numbers but what the powers and responsibilities of each Chamber should be. Whether it is the other place or your Lordships' House, what are the powers and responsibilities? How do we achieve the right balance within the relationship between the two Houses and what is the number that best achieves it? At the moment we have picked a number out of thin air. Six hundred Members is a nice round number, as we have heard, but accepting it does a disservice to your Lordships' House and to the other place and undermines some of the excellent work that has been undertaken. To reduce the number would further undermine the role of MPs in exercising any scrutiny role they may wish to have.

Lord Puttnam: I warmly support my noble friend Lord Grocott. I bow to no one in your Lordships' House as a reformer. I was hoping to speak to the earlier amendment of my noble friend Lord Kennedy because, for the first time in 13 years, I was attracted to the idea of supporting the status quo. However, I could not get in.
	My reforming zeal has always been focused on better government. I have tried very hard never to be a knee-jerk reformer and I have been hugely indebted to and informed by the work of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, over the years.
	Taking on this role has involved two things. As many noble Lords know, I do not speak that often in the House. I do not much like speaking in the House; I am not very good at it. However, I have gone out to schools, colleges and universities to talk about democracy and the possibility that this House has a role to play in improving our democracy and, indeed, the governance of this country. I have spoken in almost 400 schools and about 350 other institutions. That is a lot of institutions. One of the points I should like to make to the noble Lord the Leader of the House is that not once in the Q and A sessions in 13 years and almost 800 occasions has anyone ever said to me, "What we really need is a smaller House of Commons and a cheaper House of Commons". In fact, they have, if anything, said the exact opposite.
	Some years ago I had the honour to chair two Hansard Society reports on the relationship of Parliament with the people. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was a member of that committee, as was the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry. The reports were absolutely unanimous. I wish to quote a couple of important lines from the first of those reports. It stated:
	"The level of informed, transparent and engaged democracy that any citizen of the 21st century has a right to expect is, of necessity, comparatively expensive. Cut price democracy will never represent much of a bargain".
	The leader of the Liberal Party in the early part of the 20th century, AJ Balfour, once said:
	"Democracy is government by explanation".
	I think that is precisely right. I would argue that far from trying to find £12 million worth of savings, a responsible Government should explain to the electorate that good democracy and good government are expensive. Therefore, if it needs to cost another £12 million or another £50 million, it is a bargain if it results in a better Government and a better run country. Therefore, I absolutely reject the notion that any part of this Bill should have to do with saving money. If it is, it is frankly a disgrace because that is not what the people of this country want and no one in any of the bodies I have talked with has ever given me that impression.
	A remarkable event took place here on 10 December. No one present in the Chamber was there but the Lord Speaker was there, as were the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the Convenor of the Cross Benches, the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza. Two hundred and eighty sixth-formers from all over the country attended this House to debate reform of the House of Lords. All four of the options with which we are only too familiar were debated. The debate lasted for three hours and was very stimulating. At the end of it, to my jaw-dropping amazement, by a margin of two to one the vote went in favour of an all-appointed House.
	It is worth mentioning why the debate went in that direction. These young people decided that they were interested in judgment, objectivity, expertise, people with a hinterland, people who had done other things in their lives and decisions made on evidence. They rejected the notion that politics should have anything to do with what they termed-this was their phrase, not mine-the party Whip. They rejoiced in the notion that the House of Lords did not seem to be dominated by the party Whip. For example, there was a lot of concern about environmental issues. I was very interested to learn from my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours that the Environmental Audit Committee has an average attendance of 37 per cent. If you told these young people that the Environmental Audit Committee, on which their lives may well depend, was being attended by a little over one-third of those appointed-

Baroness Wall of New Barnet: My Lords, I am aware of the noble Lord's commitment to the debate involving the young people, which was absolutely wonderful. However, does he agree with me that the debate we are now having will be very important to the primary school children who have been observing it and are about to leave the Chamber?

Lord Puttnam: That is very much the point that I wanted to make. I imagine that the reaction around the House might be: "What do those 280 sixth-formers represent? Young people who have not yet formed a judgment". Our debate today is about them. We are making decisions that will intimately affect their futures-not ours, because we will be gone. I was very impressed by the speech of my noble friend Lord Prescott. He is absolutely right; we are making decisions that may be implemented by a far less benign Government. I am not referring to a Conservative Government or to the coalition, because we do not know who or what will turn up in the next 10 or 20 years, nor do we have any idea what pressures there might be on the electorate. We are establishing a precedent whereby a determined Government, simply because they have a majority, can ram through constitutional change. Woe betide my children and grandchildren if they are forced to deal with the consequences.
	This is a very important debate. I have sat through any number of debates in your Lordships' House that have been interesting but not important. I have also sat through some that have been important but not interesting. Today's-and last night's-debate has been both interesting and important.

Lord Campbell-Savours: Perhaps I may take my noble friend back to the Environmental Audit Committee. It is possible that I did not represent the position with total accuracy. It is not that one-third of committee members attend meetings. In the House of Commons, some Members attend committees for five or 10 minutes to register and then leave. Therefore, the position is far worse than the case I described. That applies across all committees, even those that I do not describe as Cinderella committees.

Lord Puttnam: I will wind up with one final point. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is in his place; he may want to comment on it. Our committee, with his agreement and that of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, concluded as follows in 2004, when we were anticipating the new Parliament of 2005:
	"A new Parliament has an opportunity to pause and consider what it is there for, and what the public has the right to expect of it".
	Pause, and consider.
	I suggest that the Government of 2005 funked the job and did not do what could have been done. However, that does not mean that now rushing headlong towards an arbitrary number of MPs and making the type of changes that have been suggested is a good way forward. This is a marvellous moment for this House to show maturity and judgment, to understand who it is responsible to and to do something that the 280 young people who were here a couple of months ago would wish us to do-namely, to use wisdom and common sense to hammer out something that will be sustainable and in the long-term interests of this country.

Lord Desai: My Lords, I briefly looked in on the debate of the students. When I heard the conclusion that they came to, I lost all hope for their generation. Unlike my noble friend Lord Prescott, I want a reformed House of Lords. The last time I spoke was 17 hours ago, so I hope that noble Lords will not mind if I speak again. I do not like either of the amendments in this group because they establish an unnecessary connection between the membership of this House and that of the House of Commons. There has never been any connection between the numbers of Members of the two Chambers. When Pitt the Younger entered Parliament, your Lordships' House was half the size of the House of Commons. When I joined, it was twice the size of the House of Commons. Not only have the two Houses been independent but, from long experience, I know that the other place does not care very much about us, nor does it want to find out what we do. I do not complain about that.
	The amendment of my noble friend Lord Knight makes House of Commons membership conditional on reform of the House of Lords. The only optimistic thing about that is that my noble friend thinks that reform of the House of Lords will happen. I do not think that it will because, at the rate at which this Parliament is going, we will not have time to do it. However, even if there were time, it would not be a good idea to postpone what we wanted to do about the House of Commons until after the House of Lords had been reformed. That would be a bad precedent.
	I slightly favour the amendment of my noble friend Lord Grocott because it is not conditional on reform of the House of Lords, but merely refers to the other place having more Members than the House of Lords. If the latest report referred to by the Leader of the House about people leaving the House of Lords is implemented, we may get a membership of a reasonable size, which would be desirable. However, hitching the membership of either House to that of the other has no constitutional precedent, and so far no one has shown it to be at all desirable. We may continue to impact on each other for a long time but our roles, functions and methods of working are different, and therefore the number of Members required in the two Chambers must be different. I apologise to my noble friends for not supporting their amendments.

Lord McAvoy: My Lords, I am not too keen on the amendments in this group either, which is unusual, because usually I am strongly behind anything that my noble friend Lord Grocott puts forward. Although I have not long been a Member of this House, some noble Lords, particularly on the Liberal Democrat Benches, portray me as a dinosaur who is anti-reform, lives in the past and does not want any change. I will come to that in a couple of minutes.
	In response to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, I will say a word in favour of party Whips-all party Whips. Sometimes when I see some of their performances, it strains my faith in the importance of Whips, but in general I am in favour of them performing their duties. They do it very well; they organise the place and make it work. The popular image that they get people in corners and inflict pain, both physical and mental, is simply not true nowadays. My noble friend Lord Prescott has fond memories of one of the greatest Whips in history, Walter Harrison, who almost single-handedly carried the Labour Government between 1974 and 1979 with no majority. He did extremely well.
	I am a reformer and I believe that there can be change in the House of Lords. There can be change in the House of Commons as well, but in this context we are dealing with the House of Lords. To imply that I am against all change is not true. The older one gets, the more experienced one gets. I am in favour of slow change. Something should be done to curb the increasing number of Members of the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has been looking at ways of getting people to retire and giving them the opportunity to leave early. That is fine. I am astonished that the Conservatives, who in general are more traditionalist than Liberal Democrats or Labour Members, do not see that they are overseeing the wrecking of this place. They seem not to realise that over the past 17 hours we have crossed the Rubicon and things will never be quite the same again.
	There is danger here. I do not regard it with pleasure or joy, but as a red light signal about what could happen. Majorities can change. I think that if the boundary redistribution goes through in its current form, it will be to the disadvantage of the Labour Party, but opinions vary on the effect of the change. However, one thing is certain; we will be back in government one day. I am not sure when that day will come and will make no rash threats or promises-it has taken us 18 years before, and it took the Conservatives 13-but our turn will come again. The danger is from the damage to consensus. This has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Prescott. Those who want to fight not the class war but the war against political opponents will come to the fore and say, "The Liberal Democrats did it to us, now we will get our revenge on them". I would regret that attitude-and that would be nothing to what those on the Labour side would do to the Conservatives if they got back in power. That is the damage that is being done.
	I have a lot of respect for many traditionalist Conservative Peers. They have been extremely kind and courteous, and I have no word of criticism for them. Damage has been done, however, and, once power changes hands after an election, the seeds of damage will have been sown. There will be less tolerance, less give and take and less of the usual channels. The call will come to inflict damage on the electoral prospects of the Conservative Party, which I would oppose; and on the electoral prospects of the Liberal Democrats, which ultimately I would oppose but it would take me a wee while. That is where the damage is being done.
	I will mention the expertise, knowledge and judgment of the Cross-Benchers. I am still making my transition to this place. Some Peers have come up to me and said, "I heard you say such and such. Perhaps you could say it differently and not use that language". More Cross-Bench Peers have approached me in the past few months, looking to help and guide me, than Peers from any other party or party grouping. They bring that expertise. I have seen and heard the knowledge displayed by Peers on all sides of the House but particularly by the Cross-Benchers, who do not have an overtly political angle. It is desirable that the Cross-Benchers should remain an integral part of the House.
	The biggest damage has been done since the election. Again, I find it astonishing that traditionalist conservative Peers would go along with it. I am big on party loyalty and I understand it in other people, too. However, the proposed reforms ride roughshod over the House of Lords, where the chemistry and alchemy have changed because the Government have a majority. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have tried to maintain the fig leaf that they are not one unit and that the Government do not have a majority. I wish that they would be more open and honest and say, "Yes, we do have a majority". This fact of life has been shown over the past 17 hours; the Government as a unit have a majority. It would be a lot better if they recognised that and were more honest about it.
	That is where the biggest damage is getting done. There are elements of the Liberal Democrats in particular who say, "We are the masters now". Yes, the Government are the masters, but it will not last. Reinforcing that by increasing of the number of new Peers is damaging.
	I do not care which Government they are; when a Government know that they have that power, especially in the House of Lords, where it has not happened before, it affects their approach to the Opposition and to legislation, and that arrogance of power does damage. Ultimately, it will do damage to the Conservative Party in particular. We have seen that in the behaviour of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I am sorry to say this because of his good personality. There are aspects of, "We are in charge and we are riding roughshod over you. We are not consulting. We are moving Motions that are entirely unprecedented". If there are complaints about alleged filibustering, take it up with the usual channels and get a response. It is extremely short-sighted desperation to try to get this Bill through under any circumstances and at any price. The alchemy mixes up arrogance with being able to get a majority in this place. Ministers do not seem to realise that that is affecting them.
	However, they have that alchemy, chemistry or mix to put things through. It is affecting the atmosphere of the House, and within that are the seeds of self-destruction. I do not say that with any joy, because this country needs a balance by having a right-of-centre and a left-of-centre party. We do not need a party that is totally obsessed with voting systems and nothing else, an obsession that I have never understood. I have always understood that the Conservative Party wants power and I have always understood that my own party has struggled to get that power. That is the to-ing and fro-ing of British democracy and politics which has worked. The House of Lords is an integral part of that.
	The vision put forward by my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth shows what happens. I say that with great respect to my noble friend-I have always got on with him and I always will. It shows that, when you start thinking about systems, and despite this small liberal idea about tinkering with the House of Lords to make it more democratic, the place works, as the past 17 hours have shown. That is not to say that it cannot be altered here and there, gradually and slowly. I definitely would not go along with all the various systems that have been discussed for too long in intellectual circles. I am afraid that I cannot support my noble friend Lord Knight's proposal, and I am sorry to say that on this occasion I could not support the proposals of my noble friend Lord Grocott.
	My last appeal is to Conservative colleagues and perhaps my Cross-Bench colleagues. I do not see any faces that I can appeal to among the Liberals, but I would certainly ask traditionalist Conservative Peers and Cross-Benchers to watch this situation carefully.

Baroness Sherlock: I support my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth, but sadly for different reasons. His advocacy for his amendment was characteristically persuasive, but uncharacteristically wrong. I hope that he will forgive me if I back the content but try to offer some different reasons.
	He was right for the most powerful reason that form always follows function. That is as true when one is designing a parliamentary system as it is when one is designing a chair. If that is the case, we need to understand, as my noble friend Lord Howarth explained so well, the relative functions of both Houses without trying to conceive a grand plan that would re-engineer the entire British constitution on a piece of paper, and seek to enact that.
	At the very least, we need to understand the purpose of the two places and particularly their distinct roles. Then we can understand what their composition and size should be. Unlike many of my colleagues, I am a reformer, but possibly in a different way. I should like a much broader conversation about the way that this House functions and is composed, and an understanding about what is different about this place.
	I had an interesting conversation recently with an academic from King's College, who described the other place as being there to represent geographical communities, but that this place was a House which represented other kinds of communities of interest. There were vocational communities and communities of a whole range of expertise and perspective, and that crystallised for me what was so powerful about debates in your Lordships' House. When an issue came up, instead of people simply saying-although this is valuable-"This is how it will affect the people of Bristol" or, in my case, the people of Durham, someone would say, "This is the perspective of someone who has worked in this field for 40 years", or, "This is the perspective of a judge who oversaw the making of the law in this area", "This is the perspective of a bishop who has had to deal with some of the fallout when things have gone wrong", "Here is the perspective of someone who has been a trade unionist for 40 years and who campaigned and worked for those at the very bottom", or, "This is the perspective of someone who has been working in business trying to create jobs and understand the consequences for their community of changes in the law". That way of viewing what your Lordships' House does is a very different way of considering what communities of interest are. If we go on to have a conversation about this issue, I should like us to consider in that kind of creative and imaginative fashion the ways in which the two Houses might contribute to the wisdom of this nation and, in particular, how they might go about properly representing the communities of interest in the United Kingdom.
	One of the most powerful things about being human is that we only really come to life in relationships. We naturally form communities in all kinds of different ways. I know that noble Lords on all sides of the House will appreciate that wise Governments know that you cannot make communities; the most you can hope to do is to support them, enable them, help them to grow and allow them to flourish. Certainly, if the party opposite wants to promote the big society, I am sure that it will have discovered by now that the best thing it can do is not to try to create communities-they have a nasty way of falling over when you turn your back on them-but to work with the natural communities that exist, and there needs to be a very clear view on both sides of the House about how that should be done.
	You start with the principle that the Houses should be created in a way that respects the natural communities. Therefore, in another place, if we are looking at the way in which communities or constituencies are formed, we should go with the way that history, geography, culture and a sense of identity have naturally created constituencies. In this place, again, there should be a natural way of looking at how we represent the non-geographical communities of interest where the voices should still be heard, and we should make sure that the two things can be reconciled. However, if we start jumping in now with numbers, we will have missed a step. The point of these Houses is not the people in them but the job that they do. In reflecting on this matter, we have to consider what that job is and how the Houses may be best constructed to enable them to do it.
	I very much hope that we will not consider specific numbers. I want to share some of my experience with noble Lords. My background is in the voluntary sector. I certainly have not had the experience of many Members of this House who spent many years in another place or indeed here-I am a new girl in this House too-but I spent a lot of years representing and working with some of the most marginalised people in Britain. I ran the Refugee Council, as did my noble friend Lord Dubs, and before that I ran a single-parent charity. Both groups took turns at being national scapegoats. When I came to Parliament and tried to raise issues of manifest injustice, I found that it was in this House that I was listened to by people on all sides. I cannot help thinking that that must have something to do with the way that your Lordships came to be here and how they might one day cease to be here. That is something that I would like to see considered.
	My noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon mentioned the growing casework problem experienced by Members of another place, and I suspect that it will get considerably worse. At the moment, the only place that citizens can go for help is either to their Member of Parliament or to an advice agency. Most of those agencies are funded by legal aid and many across the country are going to close. I suspect we will find that more and more people who have welfare or other problems will have nowhere else to go other than to their Member of Parliament, and therefore it seems likely that that role will grow, not shrink.
	I do not for a moment suggest that Members of another place should simply turn into social workers or advocates. However, they play an important role by being there to act, when necessary, between the individual and the state. They represent the state to the individual but they also represent the individual to the state. Their job is sometimes to be the person who breaks through when the state appears not to act appropriately. They have to try to crack open the system and ensure that justice is done. I have lost track of the number of cases where someone would bring me a judgment that was not only demonstrably unfair but clearly not in accordance with the law. Sometimes it would take only a letter or a phone call from a Member of Parliament and the matter would be looked at again. I would never want to see the role being one of simple advocacy or special pleading, but the job of making sure that you hold the state to account for the individual, as well as going out to advocate for it, seems to be fundamental.
	I thank my noble friend Lord Knight for bringing forward for consideration the importance of the order in which we do things, and I hope that the Government will consider it.

Baroness Quin: My Lords, I am very grateful to have the opportunity to follow the thoughtful speech of my noble friend and fellow north-easterner Lady Sherlock. I also agree very much with the wording of, and the intent behind, the amendment of my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth. The fundamental point is that it is absolutely crazy arbitrarily to reduce the number of Members of the House of Commons when we are greatly increasing the number of Members in this place. That does not make sense at all, and I very much agree with my noble friends Lord Grocott and Lord Knight on that issue. It also seems strange that-

Lord Strathclyde: If the noble Baroness really does think that, what impact does she think that substantial reduction in the number of Members of the House of Lords should have had on the House of Commons?

Baroness Quin: In most countries where there is a bicameral system and a revising Chamber, the revising Chamber is roughly less than half the size of the primary Chamber. The primary Chamber has a representative role with constituencies; the revising Chamber has a different, detached role, but the two are interrelated. It seems absurd to increase the size of the revising Chamber when the Chamber involved in representing communities throughout the land is being subject to cuts. My noble friends are completely right to say that you have to look at the function of Parliament as a whole and the interrelationship between the two Chambers. To increase numbers in this place at a time when, for matters of political convenience, the coalition would like to reduce the numbers in the other place is no way to proceed in a democracy. It also seems extremely-

Lord Strathclyde: What the noble Baroness says is interesting but I am confused by the strand of her argument. Ten years ago, the Labour Government massively reduced the size of this House and then it increased it with what one noble Lord opposite-I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Grocott-said were "Tony's cronies". Did the noble Baroness feel awkward about that? Did she feel that it was a good or a bad idea, pro democracy or anti-democracy? I would just like to get a feel of where she is coming from.

Baroness Quin: The noble Lord is referring to the time when most of the hereditary Peers were removed from this House. I thought that that was a tremendous blow for democracy. The noble Lord said that he is confused but I, too, am very confused about the attitude of Ministers in this House towards these proposals. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, is not in his place but on many occasions in the past I have heard him speak out against increasing the size of this House. However, through this Bill he is proposing to reduce the size of the other place, while at the same time he is presiding over a huge increase in numbers in this House. That seems to me entirely the opposite of what we have heard him say in the past. Indeed, although my noble friend Lord McAvoy and I have different views on the way that this House should be composed, he none the less expressed his misgivings about the continual increase in the numbers in this place at a time when we are proposing to cut the numbers in the other place. I am an unashamed reformer in terms of wanting an elected second Chamber.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. When I came to this House about 16 years ago, it was completely unbalanced because the hereditary Peers were overwhelmingly Conservative and Mrs Thatcher had done nothing to reform the system. I was in one of the two opposition parties, with the noble Baroness next to me, sitting where she is now sitting. We never used the filibuster, even though there was an absurd and unfair built-in majority. In those days, no one on the Labour or Liberal Democrat Benches would have dreamt of doing so. I say that because it was a time when this House really was undemocratic and unfair in the worst possible way.

Baroness Quin: I hope that the noble Lord is not accusing me of filibustering. I have sat through a great deal of this debate and this is the first time that I have spoken. These are issues on which I feel very strongly indeed-as I hope the noble Lord will accept.
	I am someone who favours an elected second Chamber. I was interested to hear the comments about the wonderful debate that took place here on 10 December with the young people from different schools around the country. I confess to the House that I was the Member of the House who worked most closely with those young people who were putting forward the elected option. Unfortunately, we lost the debate. Nonetheless, there was a great quality of argument and discussion. It was an absolute privilege and joy for me to work with the young people from the community school in Newham in east London, helping them prepare for that debate. I absolutely applaud their efforts and the efforts of the other young people involved in what was a tremendous occasion. I am glad that my noble friend, having referred to this, enabled me to make that comment.
	In her very eloquent contribution, my noble friend Lady Smith spoke very tellingly about the changing role of MPs and their attachment to their constituency. As a former Member of the other place I feel very strongly about it too. I believe-as others have said-that it is important for constituencies to be linked to communities. It should be a very important guiding principle in deciding on numbers, rather than simply having an arbitrary number decided on. Like my noble friend, my own constituency was changed several times because of boundary changes. Sometimes those changes worked well if they were linked to proper communities.
	However, the constituency that I finally represented, Gateshead East and Washington West-which I was very happy to represent because it is in my native North-East-was a very strange constituency. The name sounds geographically a little bit confused. It was virtually two islands only connected by one narrow lane. One part of it was in the city of Sunderland and the other part was in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. That arrangement worked far less well than having a constituency that was wholly within one particular local government area and that had a very obvious association and community feeling. The arguments that my noble friend put forward were very telling indeed.
	For all these reasons-and for the reasons that she gave about the changing role of MPs-she is, in some ways, absolutely right. The pressure and amount of work is much greater than it used to be. Although we must recognise that there is also some continuity in the frustrations of the House of Commons. In the 19th century Walter Bagehot said that the House of Commons was so full of business,
	"that it is hard to keep your head in it".
	In some ways, it is not just about the numbers. It is also about the function, role and huge variety of tasks that Members are trying to undertake. It is about all these things: the need for constituencies to be part of communities and the need for the role of a Member of the other place to be properly evaluated before changes are made. We should proceed very cautiously and not proceed in an arbitrary or ill thought out manner.

Lord Peston: My Lords, one of my noble friends earlier referred to dinosaurs. I am a dinosaur. I think that it is about time one of us spoke. Some form of social Darwinism may in due course make us extinct but until then we should be allowed to speak-at least in your Lordships' House.
	The dinosaurs used to be conservatives but clearly the use of the word has changed. One of our problems with language and terminology at the moment is that it is perfectly clear that the Prime Minister is not a conservative-in the sense of appealing to us dinosaurs-and, as far as I can see, many of his Cabinet are not conservatives either. As a dinosaur, I see no urgent need-and I underline the word, urgent-to change your Lordships' House, to change the other place or to change the electoral system. I am not opposed to change as I will point out in a moment but is it urgent? No.
	One of my problems with the alternative vote, over which a great many of us have a hang-up, is that, when I look at the Benches opposite and I think of my many Tory friends, I cannot find a single one who supports the alternative vote. They get through the day by biting their lips and pretending that none of this is happening. I must tell them that it is. I am grievously sorry that the Labour Government who have just gone did not accept the so-called Steel Bill, which would have tidied your Lordships' House in a most desirable way and would have given us a great deal of time on which to produce a more rational way of moving forward. Bygones are bygones. I echo my noble friend Lord Puttnam. I do not meet anybody from what I will call-for want of a better phrase-the real world, who is remotely interested in this legislation. I repeat an old joke. I guess that 1 per cent of the electorate favour the Bill, 1 per cent are against the Bill and 98 per cent have not the faintest idea of what we are up to and, more to the point, have no wish to know.
	I care about your Lordships' House. My time is running out. However, I have broadly enjoyed every minute of the 24 years I have spent here. Although I was doubtful when I first got here, I do not believe that I have wasted my time in coming here-quite the contrary. Even in the bad old years that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, refers to, when we had hereditaries, we did a pretty good job. I do not know if the noble Lord, Lord Lester, remembers, but we had all-night sessions. We did not filibuster then and I do not regard myself as filibustering now. I regard my duty as trying to persuade the Leader of the House to think about this rationally and to go away and come back with a much better way of doing things. This is what this is all about. I am not much of an optimist but I have at least a faint hope that maybe something sensible might yet emerge.
	In my dinosaur role, I say again that the atmosphere of this House in the past few weeks has changed dreadfully for the worse. The cause of this is the Bill. The beginning and end of everything going wrong is not the fact that we have a lot of new Peers taking time to understand our ways and to fit in. It is nothing other than this Bill and the refusal to approach rationally what is in the Bill. That means of course that what has gone wrong with this House is the Government's fault.
	They suggest remotely, via the Government's friends in the right-wing press, that the Opposition are the cause of all the problems. However, this is not our Bill. I have heard my noble friends come up with lots of entirely acceptable suggestions for amending it and the Government clearly have a bit of paper that they have all had printed for them, saying, "Agree to nothing". That is what is going on here. We should not pretend that that is not what is going on.
	Coming to my final remarks, most horrifying of all was the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, from the Government Front Bench a couple of hours ago. I hope that I am mistaken but he appeared to say-indeed he appeared to threaten us-that the Government were willing, because of this Bill, to end self-regulation in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has every opportunity-he can get up now if he wants-to pledge that it is not remotely in the Government's mind to end the era of self-regulation, and maybe even introduce a guillotine in your Lordships' House. I did not hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, say that that was not in his mind. Would the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, like me to sit down so that he can tell us that the thought has never entered his mind? No, he is not even looking in my direction. He dare not look in my direction. What pretty pass have we come to as a result of this, when someone on the Government Front Bench, albeit a Liberal Democrat, can even raise the subject of ending self-regulation and possibly introducing a guillotine?

Lord Mawhinney: Maybe I am a dinosaur too, but I have been listening carefully to what the noble Lord has been saying, and at least with dinosaurs there is perhaps an occasional element of resonance. He also said that his side was not filibustering but are seeking to persuade the Government to change their mind. How many hours does he think it is legitimate to take to seek to persuade the Government to change their mind before he accepts that they are not going to change their mind and that thereafter it is a filibuster?

Lord Peston: The noble Lord ought to look at the history of filibustering, particularly its origins. By no standards can the reasoned arguments that we are putting forward count as filibustering. I have not heard anyone make a five-hour speech-20 minutes seemed to get up everyone's nose. However, I do take the noble Lord's point. My late father used to say to me: "Stop knocking your head against the wall. Do you not realise that you will feel better when you stop doing it?". There is a genuine question of when we on our side give up. I am not in command of that, but I take the noble Lord's point when he asks us why we do not accept defeat. I was a boy during the war and I lived in London during the blitz. I know it is not a good analogy, but we did not accept defeat then, and on our side we do not intend to accept defeat now.

Lord Mawhinney: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way again. I think I promise not to do it a third time. I was very careful not to accuse the side opposite of filibustering and of irrelevantly banging their heads against a wall, to use the noble Lord's phrase. However, it seems legitimate as we go through this process, with a residual element of good will on both sides, for the House to have some sense of how long those on the opposition Benches think it is legitimate to seek to persuade before the prospect of persuasion becomes vanishingly small.

Lord Peston: I had really sat down, so I hope the noble Lord will accept that I do not have to reply.

Lord McNally: Fortunately, in the 21st century, it is possible to follow the proceedings while moving some paper-and I did hear what the noble Lord said earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said from a sedentary position that I am sensitive about it. When I made my remarks earlier, both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that I had my facts wrong-I think the term was my "century wrong". However, I made no threats whatever. I merely pointed out that in the 19th century the House of Commons had lost some of its liberties in the management of business because of abuse of procedure. In order to check, I went to the House of Commons Information Office factsheet P10, which did indeed say that the guillotine was first employed, essentially as it is now, on the Criminal Law Amendment (Ireland) Bill in 1887.
	Interestingly, the Minister who introduced the innovation in 1887 argued that he was doing so because it was,
	"absolutely essential in the interests of the honour and dignity of Parliament",
	and that although Mr Gladstone,
	"referred to the proposal as 'a further abridgement of parliamentary liberty'",
	he,
	"did not lead his party into the lobbies against it",
	because,
	"he had been Prime Minister in 1881 when a simple prototype form of guillotine had been used to bring an end to the committee stage of the Protection of Person and Property (Ireland) Bill)".-[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/1887; col. 1596.]
	I was saying simply that there is an historical analogy; when the system breaks down, there are consequences. I made no threats, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, wants to apologise for suggesting that I did not know my history.

Lord Campbell-Savours: It is not that I have to apologise but that the noble Lord raised the question of the guillotine during our debate. He may wriggle around as much as he likes, or go to the Library and check the historical record, but he introduced that element. There are those of us who believe that, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who has a lot to lose by introducing a guillotine-his reputation, as he does not want to be the first Leader of the House of Lords to introduce a guillotine on a constitution Bill-the noble Lord, Lord McNally, might entertain it in certain conditions.

Lord McNally: I do not in the slightest, but I will give another analogy. The reason why we have the Salisbury/Addison convention-and the reason why this House has lasted as long as it has-is that, at that time, those who had the power perpetually to disrupt, defeat and destroy had the wisdom not to use it. Salisbury/Addison came about because Lord Salisbury was smart enough to know that if they used the power-which has always been there in a self-regulating House-consequences would follow. I said no more, and to suggest any idea of threats is simply absurd.

Lord Soley: The noble Lord is making a fundamental mistake. Actually, I am sure that it is not a mistake as he knows that he is doing it. The phrase that he used was "abuse of procedure". The key abuse here is for a Government to bring in a portmanteau Bill on the constitution without any co-operation, or even any attempt to reach agreement between the various political parties, and without any attempt to consult, and then to try and drive it through without any concessions whatever. That is an abuse of this House, and it will destroy it. It will turn it into another House of Commons, and when they bring forward their Bill on the reform of the House of Lords, they will drive that even further. The noble Lord is destroying this House; let us have no illusions about it.

Lord McNally: I am the last one to tell the noble Lord not to get aerated but, as my noble friend reminded us a little earlier, less than a year ago his own Government brought in a constitutional reform Bill that had 13 separate items of constitutional reform. I understand that occasionally, as the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and I were discussing earlier, a little bit of aeration is worth it, but so too is a little self-knowledge. No one is threatening anyone, but there are lessons to be learnt from history, which was all I was doing.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I was the one who introduced the word "guillotine". I did it yesterday at col. 16, and I did it to say that, happily, we never had to introduce the guillotine here because we operated the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, indicated, in a way that was self-regulating and that worked perfectly well. I said it not because I thought that we should introduce a guillotine but because I thought that we should behave in a way that made it unnecessary.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: The noble Lord, for whom I have the highest regard, was more aerated than he recollects. Not only did he mention the end of self-regulation, and referred to the situation at the end of the 19th century, but he used a sentence which I cannot remember exactly but which referred to Fenian obstructionism. The Fenians at that stage in the last quarter of the 19th century were not just parliamentary obstructionists-

Lord Kinnock: Terrorists!

Lord Elystan-Morgan: They were very different from that. It was, I thought, utterly uncharacteristic of a gentleman for whom I have, as I say, the very highest regard.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am certainly not prepared to be part of any filibuster, and there has been no filibuster; there has been a discussion of important amendments. Through the long watches of the night, I have exercised considerable self-restraint because there has scarcely been a debate in which I would not have wished to participate. The debates have shed a great deal of light upon the development of this legislation and the necessity for change. The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, is quite straightforward; we are concerned about the principles behind this legislation and we have real objections to them. He will recall that, when we introduced principled legislation on the abolition-as we put it at that time-of the hereditary peerage, we engaged in compromise that was not accepted by all noble Lords on Labour Benches, but did so because we recognised that a constitutional issue has to have some consensus. Progress that is rammed through against the principled opposition of a major party in the land is not the way to achieve constitutional reform. That is what we have demonstrated in this debate-exactly that principled position.
	I say to the noble Lords opposite that they should recognise our anxieties. They should recognise that the very act of coalition has transformed this House. It has transformed it in the nature of the Benches; it has transformed the nature of our deliberations. Everyone knows of the enormous pressure on Question Time. It is very difficult for a self-regulated House. We are all having problems coping. What is that a reflection of? It is a reflection of the fact that there is now one opposition party, plus the influential contribution of those on the Cross Benches, but there is a majority party on the other side that is presenting its position. That is bound to sharpen the exchanges, and, particularly as we bring in more and more talented people, it is inevitable that the competition to express a point of view is getting more intense. As a consequence, we are seeing our procedures coming under increasing strain.
	None of this is the work of the Opposition. Not only are the Government not apologising or in any way showing restraint about this mad dash to get additional Members on to their side into the House-and by Heavens we have seen the reason for it in the long watches of the night. What is the hurry? It is because they have always been worried about this highly controversial legislation on which we have a very strong case for criticism and on which they should effect some compromise about how it is tackled, not least by giving sufficient time for debate of this major constitutional issue, which relates to the relationship between the two Houses. Of course, the Government are ignoring all those representations.
	I said that there are consequences from all this. I am grateful to my noble friend for his amendment, which has triggered this debate, and to my noble friend Lord Grocott, the former Chief Whip, for his position. He and I agree on a great deal in these matters, but we are actually divided on a fundamental issue. My noble friend from time to time seems to present arguments that this House and the constitution are a nice equipoise, the old Burkean concept, whereas I am an out-and-out reformer. I have always been one; I am an embattled minority in this House and never particularly enjoyed that position. Nevertheless, that is what I am. I am probably an embattled minority in my own party. I certainly am in respect of the whole House.
	I emphasise that, because we are in this situation today, we should recognise the gains that have been made in the House over the past decade or so. There is no doubt that the House has enhanced its reputation or that those who join us recognise the value of our debates and deliberations. There is increasing awareness outside of the work that the House does. None of us can go before schools on the Speaker's programme to talk to schools without being aware of the fact that young members of the community know some of the value of the work that we do. We must not exaggerate that, but we must protect what we have.
	My anxiety is that the Government are proving to have a degree of ruthlessness in their objectives that is completely counter to the way in which one should handle a Bill of this great significance. The Government know that we recognise that there is a time and date for the Bill; we recognise that the Bill-or part of the Bill-has to be delivered in a certain time. We have offered that, and we have offered discussions on that. It is the other part of the Bill, which contains fundamental constitutional issues, that we expect to deliberate at length.

Lord Kinnock: I am grateful to my noble friend. Can I take advantage of his experience and perspicacity? Does he think that there is a possibility that the circumstances at which we have arrived, deeply regrettable as they are, are the product of the fact that unusually, in the context of the past decade or so, we have a Government in a position, if they wish to, to employ one-party rule in this House because of a built-in guaranteed majority? Despite that, because of his knowledge of and acquaintance with the Leader of the House, does he agree that this ruthlessness of which he spoke is not entirely the product of the Leader of the House, who understands this place, but the product of those outside this House who do not understand this place but have instructed the Leader of the House to take the attitude that, because they can get 100 per cent by exercise of their overwhelming majority, they must get 100 per cent and nothing less? The absence of room for reasonable compromise arises from that external pressure.

Lord Davies of Oldham: I am grateful to my noble friend for reminding me of an unfortunate fact. We all lament the very limited perspective that still obtains at the other end on the work in this House. We often see instances of that failure to appreciate the contribution that we make. In these circumstances, the Leader of the House must take responsibility for the actions that he pursues, and I shall not attribute it to others while I have before me the noble Lord who is answerable and responsible for this legislation. I am making an obvious appeal to him that he appreciates that. We shall continue to demonstrate that and to argue the case of principle, not with filibustering but with reasoned argument on very important amendments. The noble Lord should appreciate that now is the time to breaks the log-jam. That is the point of being in government. It is the Government who have power, not the Opposition, who produce bows and arrows against the rolling tanks of government-particularly when that Government have a majority not only in the other House but, in political terms, in this House too. That is what is transforming the nature of, and the atmosphere in, this House.
	I am eager that we should recover our poise and sustain our reputation. I am eager that we should co-operate with each other to produce the best effects in legislation. However, this Bill and the basis on which it is being done, along with the attitude that underpins it, are the ruination of us all.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, I have not participated in this to date, but we seem to have combined two amendments at this point and I wanted to rise to make a contribution.
	I tend to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that there is not an automatic link between the numbers in one House and another, but there is certainly a link between the powers of the primary Chamber and the powers of this House. I thank my noble friend Lord Knight for tabling his amendment, and similarly my noble friend Lord Grocott for drawing to our attention the fascinating conundrum of the proposal to reduce the numbers in the other place while at the same time increasing to an extraordinary amount the numbers in this House. My noble friend Lady Smith said that she did not know how they had arrived at the figure. We have had the explanation-we might not like it and it might not necessarily be logical, but we have been told that it will save money. I am not going to comment on that approach from a Government who have made their attitude clear on the importance of cutting the deficit and that any amount is important. Someone else has said that 600 is a nice round figure, and it is hard to argue with that, too. Others allege that it will create a political advantage, although I could not possibly comment on that. But those are the arguments that we have heard to date. I have one thing to say to the coalition. To paraphrase, if you reform in haste, you may well repent at leisure.
	One thing that my noble friends have drawn to noble Lords' attention again and again is the way in which this House has changed with the coalition Government. The atmosphere has changed. The Government have the power-there is no arguing with that. They have the Divisions and the numbers. My noble friend Lord McAvoy used the phrase that the chemistry had changed, which made it clear that he was a science graduate. He is right. It has changed. An interesting and important comment was made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, who has many wise words that are always worth listening to. He said that the coalition should think carefully about the ability to reach an agreement. As my noble friend Lord Davies said, the power to reach an agreement on this contentious Bill is within the hands of the Government.
	There have been a couple of not so much accusations as suggestions about whether the fact that there has been a forensic analysis of this Bill, which has gone on for a considerable time, is, in effect, filibustering. I could not help reflecting on the fact that I had the exquisite pleasure of taking through the Digital Economy Bill, which was a modest little number. It had 43 clauses and attracted 700 amendments. I do not think that I ever used the word filibustering, although on many occasions I watched as we debated the same issue again and again and again and again.

Lord Strathclyde: How many of those amendments were from his own side?

Lord Young of Norwood Green: Some were, but many more were from Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. I have no complaint about that, but I had the same desire that the noble Lord has to get the Bill through. To enable us to do that, many hours were spent in arriving at compromises. That is the significant difference. I would have wished it to proceed faster, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, wishes this to do, but it was a plain fact of life that if we wanted this Bill to succeed we had to listen carefully to the Opposition's arguments and, in certain circumstances, be prepared to arrive at a compromise. That is what has changed the atmosphere with regard to this Bill. You know that you have the power and you do not want to compromise in any way whatever. It does not matter what has been suggested; however marginal it has been, there has been no attempt whatever to reach a compromise. If the Government are going to suggest that the Opposition are somehow doing something out of the ordinary, they should examine their own actions and their own attitude towards this House. I believe that that is fundamentally important.
	We all know that, whichever way we want to reform the House, one attraction of the House of Lords is that it is a place where there has been reasoned debate and an ability to persuade a Government to change their mind and accept amendments. That is what has been missing during the course of this debate. It is unfortunate that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is not here. I do not want to accuse him of making threats, but I will say what I would say when I got a bit agitated when trying to resolve a dispute with my kids-they are young adults now-just chill out. I cannot help feeling that he ought to take that advice, because I do not think that that has helped the discussion in the Chamber.
	I think that the Opposition have been perfectly reasonable in dealing with a Bill on which we believe there could be compromises. It could be taken in two parts if there was a willingness on the Government's part to consider that, or to consider any amendments or compromise. Although I do not necessarily support these individual amendments, I thank both my noble friends who have tabled them for giving us the opportunity to have this debate and for me to be able to participate.

Lord Triesman: Like my noble friend Lord Young, I have not spoken in this debate at all. Were it not for the issue in these two amendments, but particularly in that of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I probably would not have done so, but there is a fundamental point here that I would like the opportunity to explore. I was very grateful to hear from my noble friend that during the passage of the Digital Economy Bill, in which I also had some involvement, he sought compromises with those moving amendments on the other side of the House. I had very strong views about part of the Bill and, if I had known that he was looking for compromises, I would have knocked on his door and applied to have one or two myself.
	I am not allowed to describe the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, as a noble friend, but he is certainly a friend. I remain a perpetual optimist, and I still hope that some things may be changed by means of a sensible debate in your Lordships' House.
	My reason for wanting to say things that are supportive of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, are these-and they follow very closely from the views expressed by my noble friend Lady Sherlock. Before I came to the House-although I was deeply involved in political life, with responsibilities in the organisation of the Labour Party-I was intrigued by the way in which the House worked and in particular by how the definition of the role of Members of this House was contrasted with the roles understandably played in another place. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in the course of the night, has said how hard it is to define those roles, because so many things would come along that you had never seen before and make you question whether you had ever really understood the extremities of the role that you might play.
	I understood very well that it was difficult to define those roles precisely. The then Leader of the House was Lord Williams, who was most certainly a good and treasured friend and a very great guide to so many of us in the ways that the House works. Gareth Williams was kind enough to describe to me the complementary character of the roles played by the two Houses-that is, the jobs which were done in the Commons and the Lords, even if it would have been hard to write down a job description particularly for Members of the House of Commons. None the less, you could understand that process. I respected that because I understood it, which is what brings me to follow the proposition put forward by my noble friend Lady Sherlock.
	In almost every debate that I have had the privilege to attend in your Lordships' House on the future of this House, the conversation has focused almost entirely on how many people should be here; very rarely has the debate been about how many people should be at the other end of the building, though of course that issue has come round in this legislation. However, it has always been about the numbers. I find that an extraordinary way to describe any system, or to consider what might happen in such a system. Perhaps it is because I am a pragmatist, too narrow in my vision or whatever, but I always start by asking the purpose that we are intended to fulfil, and whether we are fit for that purpose. Is it possible to work out what each of the different elements of our parliamentary system is supposed to do to the benefit of the people of the United Kingdom? The answer to those questions seems to lead almost inevitably to a better specification of who and how many people you need to do that. There cannot just be a random answer.
	There will of course be different opinions about the answer and the qualities of the answer. However, there will be an answer about how many people there should be so long as you know what you are intending to do and whether you think you can make those functions fit for purpose. Yet that has rarely been part of our debate. I am not criticising any noble Lord for that because the propositions have generally been put to us in those terms. I am not sure that, had this House had its way, we would ever have discussed the subject from that end of the telescope. We would have started with a more rational discussion about function. Every so often, however, we have had an element of that discussion.
	I am deeply concerned now in part because I think that the atmosphere here has become awful and sour. I do not want to contribute to that at all. It is certainly an awful transformation from the time when I had the privilege of sitting on that Front Bench and experienced great courtesy right across the House in our deliberations on the issues with which I was concerned. It is not just because of that. It is because I think that we can identify some characteristics of the changes in the system that should make us all pause and really think about whether we can do this without a proper reflection on the whole issue of the numbers here and the function that we are supposed to perform.
	I am not making this argument because I think it will produce an impossible circle in which we cannot do one thing without the other, and then we cannot do the other without the first. I truly understand that argument. We have tried to elaborate our constitution over probably centuries but certainly decades, since the reforms following the Budgets of Lloyd George. That has been done at a pace at which it has been possible to assess the constitutional impact of one set of proposals and to digest those before moving to the next set of constitutional propositions. There has been the time to do it.
	In other words, we did not say that it was impossible to do it all together because you would never know where to start or where you would break deadlock, but we have had the luxury-if I can put it in this way to your Lordships' House-of digesting it and thinking about the impact. So, even if we did not write the constitution down in a very specific form, we had the chance to grasp the fundamental elements of it and to develop conventions which I think are sadly now missing for the most part, which allowed a degree of organic development of the relationship between the two Houses.
	Those are not the circumstances in which we find ourselves now. We are in circumstances where it is obviously intended, and I understand why, to produce a swift and dramatic set of reforms to your Lordships' House in the wake of the reforms to the other end of this Building, and there will be no time for any iterative process in which people can compose, even in that rather more organic way, any kinds of constitutional arrangements. I just say this: were it to be the case, for example, that the reforms of this House led to a wholly elected House, a partially elected House or some other hotch-potch, I am convinced that anyone who runs for an election-I have run for a good few in my time-will stand by their rights as an elected person to answer to their constituents as an elected person because you cannot really ever do anything else if you intend to carry on doing the job.
	There will be two sets of elected people in this Building, two sets of numbers without a proper digest of any constitutional issue, because we will not have allowed ourselves the time for the necessity of making that analysis-it is not a luxury-and there will be constitutional deadlocks. I do not like using overdramatic language, but in my view there is likely to be chaos. That chaos will be compounded by the arrangements with the European Parliament and the devolved legislatures around our country-they may increase in number, but there will be chaos even with the current number-and, certainly, by the relationships with local government, because we are not doing ourselves the courtesy of thinking through what the framework of these constitutional arrangements ought to be.
	That can hardly be the way in which a genuinely mature legislature, as we have, approaches questions of this size and this importance. It cannot be right to do it this way. So, even if it is thought by some to be a lost cause, I ask that we pause and consider. In doing it in the way that we are, we will probably end up with something about which in a year, or in 18 months, every one of us will say, hand on heart, "I never wanted that; it was not where I intended to go or what I think was desirable for the legislature of this country". Everyone will repent it, not with ease but with great regret, and what is lost will be irreplaceable.
	I apologise for speaking even this once in the debate.

Lord Trimble: I apologise to cut short the noble Lord's apologies, but I wanted to come in before he sat down. I found myself in considerable agreement with the comments that he was making about the consequences for Parliament as a whole if we find changes to this House rushed through this House in the way that he mentioned.
	I want to put this point to him: does he appreciate that the consequence that he warns against is made much more likely if, in this House, there is a determined campaign to obstruct the primary legislative project of the present Government, and that the Opposition at the moment are getting dangerously close to that territory? The Opposition need to consider the unintended consequences, such as the noble Lord has mentioned, of their current behaviour.

Lord Triesman: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, for putting that point to me. I suppose that the fundamental point that I am trying to make is this: without some proper digest of both the parts, it is very unlikely that we will come to a satisfactory conclusion. In that, I see that we are broadly in agreement, although I do not want to put words into the noble Lord's mouth. Were it to be the case that we did not try to pursue these arguments as convincingly as we could, with the best arguments and evidence available to us, all that would happen is that as this went through, people would look at the Opposition, or indeed those sitting on the government Benches and Cross-Benches who may agree with these general propositions-I have an instinct that there may be many people who are afraid of the unintended consequences of all this-and say, "How was it that they allowed all that to happen without the most thorough exploration of its consequences for the people of the United Kingdom?". That is why I myself would have welcomed it, even if it had meant that the debate had gone on longer, if noble Lords on all sides of the House had engaged in this debate. It is precisely these things that I want to understand because I want the best for this House and certainly for the other place, and I want the combination of the two Houses to deliver what the people of the United Kingdom want. I fear that we will now end up with exactly what they will not want.
	I get back to my apology, in a way: I do apologise but, having not spoken, I hope that noble Lords will understand that I feel very passionate about these possible consequences. I suspect that there are a good many people in your Lordships' House who feel the same anxiety and can see this calamity unfolding, without any real arrest of its process or the discussion that we really need in order to get those questions right. I thank noble Lords for allowing me the opportunity to put that point.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, these two amendments rather bring it all together. The effect of my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth's amendment would be that the Bill did not decide the number of Members in the House of Commons until the membership and powers of a reformed House of Lords had been agreed by both Houses of Parliament. As I understand the amendment, once we knew what we wanted the Lords to do and how their membership was going to be selected-and, presumably, once we knew what its relationship was with the Commons-then, and only then, would we decide what the numbers in the Commons should be. The thinking is that if, for example, we were completely satisfied that all the House of Lords did was scrutiny and nothing else, that would tutor us in how large both the House of Lords and the House of Commons should be.
	My noble friend Lord Grocott's amendment is, with respect to my noble friend, slightly more opaque. Its effect would be that this Bill never came into force, as I understand it, until the Lords was smaller in number than the Commons. My noble friend's amendment is opaque because it gives no indication, although this may come in his next amendment, of what the size of the Commons should be.
	These amendments raise principled issues. First, there is the basis for the reduction in the size of the Commons-that is, are we trying to change the function of the Commons in any way? The noble Lord the Leader of the House has put that to rest; in the interview that he gave to Sky Television, where he gave his clearest exposition, he said that the public want fewer politicians, especially around the Commons, and 50 is about right. That is a précis of what he said to Sky yesterday, and that, as I understand it, is the reason.
	The noble Lord is saying not that the function of the Commons should be changed in any way but only that the numbers should be reduced because people do not like politicians any more. The logic of that must be that if people do not like politicians any more, we should also be reducing the number of politicians in the Lords. However, as many of my noble friends have pointed out, the number of noble Lords since 5 May 2010 has gone up by 117. So it is quite difficult to see what the logic is of the Government's position with regard to the Lords.
	Perhaps that is not surprising, because the noble Lord the Leader of the House has not told us what the detailed plans are. I understand that we will be seeing them in the next few weeks. I do not know what he can tell us but it would really help us to know, first, what he envisages as the role of the Lords. Does he envisage its role to remain the same as it is at the moment? Secondly, does he envisage the size of the House being smaller or larger than it is at the moment? If so, what size will it be? Thirdly, what does he envisage as being the process for becoming a Member of this House? Will the House be wholly elected or substantially elected, or will there be some other form of entry? If election is to play a part in it, which I understand it is, how will he ensure that the Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, indicated, does not become a competitor to the Commons? Why is election to the Lords any less valid that that to the Commons? How will the Government ensure, if they want the Lords to be a scrutinising House, that it remains exclusively so? The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, who made an excellent speech, said that she had discovered that this House is more attentive to the concerns of people who need help. Is that because of the structure of the House? Will that be lost in what the noble Lord proposes?
	I do not think the amendments of either my noble friend Lord Knight or my noble friend Lord Grocott are sustainable, but they allow the noble Lord to indicate to us how the Bill relates to his proposals for Lords reform. They come together because the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nick Clegg, has said in many speeches that his great reform programme-the most important since the 1832 Act-includes, co-linked with this Bill, the reform of the House of Lords. I say that they come together, because the relationship between the Lords and the Commons is also affecting the position in which we now find ourselves in this House.
	My experience of being in this House during the past 13 years is that we have made progress in substantially amending Bills and occasionally stopping them altogether, including those which the Government of whom I was a member proposed, because we have understood when we had to reach agreement and when it was possible to block things. This is an occasion when we need to make progress and agree things, but, because we are a self-regulating House, it inevitably involves give-and-take on both sides. That is quite easy to achieve when there are three separate parties. Where, however, two of the parties come together, as they do in the coalition, it has two effects: first, it gives those two parties much greater power and enables them to refuse to make concessions that would otherwise be made; secondly, and just as significantly, once an agreement has been reached between the two members of the coalition, its ability to make significant concessions becomes more difficult, because both parties become dependent on each other to stick by the agreements that have been reached.
	We now need better skills than in the past to find a way forward. I said at the beginning of yesterday that the leadership of the Labour Party is willing to sit down and find a way out of this new position. I make it clear that we will do so with good will by negotiating either a process or the substance. We should, as Members of this House with substantial responsibilities for its continued success, both recognise that more is required than previously. I completely endorse what my noble friend Lord Prescott said: that our survival depends on our ability to negotiate effectively.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am delighted to hear the noble and learned Lord say that he did not agree with the amendments, and I agree with him. We have had a magnificent and wide-ranging debate lasting some three hours. Nearly three hours ago, the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, accused me of spraying innuendo. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it is rather a delightful phrase and I should like to keep it. I shall find an opportunity to use it in the weeks and months ahead.
	We have had a bit of coalition philosophy. I did not follow much of it, but I am sure that we will hear about the terrible things it means for the Opposition in the near future. I welcome the offer made by the noble and learned Lord to discuss and to negotiate. If only he had done that at the beginning of November when I talked to him about the number of days that we should sit; but the noble and learned Lord got batey with me when I suggested that we should negotiate. So I welcome the change of tone. It is immensely good news.
	We have had several different strands during the course of the debate, some of which had something to do with the amendments and some that did not. There was a strand on Lords reform and that there should be no change to the House of Commons until reform of the Lords has been completed. There was a strand that there should be no change to the House of Commons under any circumstances for a whole variety of reasons. We then had a long debate by various noble Lords on the process. Somehow members of the Opposition have turned themselves into great victims of the coalition. I am not a psychiatrist, so I need to speak to my noble friend Lord Alderdice about this. There is now a sort of victim culture that speaks of how, "We have all been put upon by the Government". I feel put upon by the Opposition, but the Opposition feel put upon by the coalition as though there was something immoral about it. It is as if uniting in the House of Commons and uniting here is a dreadful thing. They do not accept the changes and it is an extraordinary thing.
	There is also a new view, which is that the Opposition somehow have a right to what they call compromise, even if-or, in fact, especially if-they have not won a vote. This is a most bizarre concept that I have never heard before, but I recognise that members of the Labour Party in the House of Lords have talked themselves into believing it. We had a self-proclaimed dinosaur, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for whom I have tremendous affection. He knows that, and I have known him for a very long time. I thought that he was going to make a rather different speech and wax lyrical about the old days when he and his colleagues ran a most effective Opposition in this House with considerably fewer Members. They were not the largest group in the House, as the Labour Party is currently. As a smaller group they were able, without endless debates going on into the night, to effect change in a most dramatic and able way. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, was Chief Whip. I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would set some of his colleagues an example of how he used to do it.

Lord Peston: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I welcome his friendly remarks. However, does he remember that when he was the Minister and I was the principal spokesman, we were often dealing with Bills that neither he nor I understood, so we had great difficulties? I distinctly remember one occasion when he said that he really had to get one of his Bills through, so he asked what concessions could be made in order to do that. I paused, at which he said, "You don't understand the Bill and nor do I. Why not go and see the officials? They will give you some concessions and then we can get the Bill through". That was the atmosphere, but that is not what is happening on this Bill at the moment. The whole thing has totally changed.

Lord Strathclyde: That strikes me as an eminently sensible way of doing business, but in those days we were dealing with relatively minor details. On this occasion, it is the fundamental principles that noble Lords opposite dislike so much. Having themselves introduced the concept of AV, they are now the first to deny it. They say that it is not the principle of AV but that it is the wrong date; it is the wrong time and it is the wrong electorate. Not enough women or BMEs voting, it is not in Gaelic, and other issues have been brought forward in a plethora of other amendments. But when it comes to reducing numbers in the House of Commons, they totally oppose the principle. There is some shaking and nodding of heads opposite. There is a confusion of policy. We still do not know whether it is official Labour Party policy to campaign in elections around the country for 650 MPs. If it is, they might want to tell us how they got to the figure of 650. I look forward to that.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, it is very interesting to hear the Leader of the House telling us how difficult it is to understand Labour Party policy. Surely the purpose of this part of the debate is for him to explain the policy of the Conservative Party and the Government and to explain to us exactly why-because we are still waiting-they have settled on the figure of 600 Members of the House of Commons as the perfect number.

Lord Strathclyde: Our policy is crystal clear. There should be 600 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 50 fewer than the current number. We believe that that is sufficient for MPs to do their business. We believe in equality of votes around the country, with constituencies averaging roughly 75,000. That is a very clear policy.
	I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, once in my wind-up. Does he want to use it up now?

Lord Soley: Definitely. First, a number of us have been saying for some years that there is a case for reducing the size of the House of Commons, but the argument is more complex than simply coming up with a figure. The problem is this magic figure that he just referred to again. The number is reduced to 600 for no other reason than the one he gave: that this is a good enough system for the House to work. In fact the reason, which was given in a number of documents and speeches by Conservative MPs and by people pursuing that policy in the Conservative Party, is that it would decrease Labour representation in the House of Commons. That is in writing; the noble Lord can read it. I quoted some of it yesterday.

Lord Strathclyde: I must admit that I have not done a great study of this, but I am reminded that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that if that was the reason, it was not the case, and I am very happy to rest with that. I do not think it is a partisan policy by the coalition somehow to reduce Labour representation. What is part of our policy is to have an equalisation of constituencies across the country.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the Leader of the House, his noble friend Lord McNally and even the courteous noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, have not answered the question about when a Government last determined in advance of a proper independent inquiry the number of people who should sit in the House of Commons. My noble friend Lady Nye has done some research to help me. Apparently it was 1832 when it was last decided by the Government and, in order to get it through Parliament, they introduced a very large number of new Members to your Lordships' House. I thought that would help the noble Lord because I cannot see why we cannot have the normal custom and practice of looking at parliamentary boundaries independently and a report back. Then we would not have to have the notional figure of 600. It would be done properly, not on the back of an envelope.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving us that information. She asked the question many hours ago and I did not have the answer then. She has the answer now, and that is good news.
	The point is that the Boundary Commissions are independent. They will do their review and will advise Parliament on their conclusions. It is equally right that Parliament should say to the Boundary Commissions that we believe the right number across the country is 600. I am in danger of doing what I have accused noble Lords opposite of doing, which is straying from the amendment, and I certainly do not want to do that.
	I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to these debates on House of Lords reform. I can promise him many hours of debate in the months and perhaps even years ahead on this great subject. He joins a small but-I hope the noble Lord will not mind if I say this-noble group of Members who wave the standard of reform and are not much encouraged by their Back Benches. The noble Lord will find that is equally so. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dubs-he is no longer in his place, which is a pity-and many other noble Lords, I recognise that being a reformer in this House is quite a difficult path to tread.
	Of course, it is true that Lords reform forms part of a wider series of reforms designed to restore trust in Parliament, but that does not mean that deciding on an appropriate size for the other place is in any way dependent on membership of this House. Determining the size of the other place and reforming this House are not interrelated. If they were, which would come first? As my noble friend Lord Tyler said hours ago-he was absolutely right in his intervention in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Knight-could we not equally argue that reform of this House cannot be finalised until we agree on an appropriate size for the other place? The two questions are not necessarily connected. If we had done it the other way, I feel sure that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would have been the first to have argued it the other way round.
	The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would have us wait until the number in this House was below the number in the House of Commons. At the moment, there is no means to retire. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral has issued a report and we will be studying it. So many noble Lords are keen on retiring from this House that I hope the report will be accepted and a means for retirement will be accepted forthwith.
	When we get to the Government's plans on long-term reform of this House, while no final decisions have been made, I very much hope that a document will be published in the next few weeks. I think I can say that it is likely that an elected senate would be substantially smaller than the current House and almost certainly smaller than another place. I hope that that will put a smile on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.

Lord Grocott: If that is the Leader of House's objective, why does he not start work on that now by stopping any additional entries into this House?

Lord Strathclyde: There is an awfully long queue of new Peers and hopeful Peers who would like to come in. Publishing a Bill and sending it to a Joint Committee of both Houses is an important milestone in this debate on reform of the House of Lords, but it is not yet the introduction of a Bill for legislation. We shall have to wait for the Government's decision on that, and of course the Bill will be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.
	Reform of this House is, of course, an important issue, but determining the size of the other place and reforming this House are certainly not connected. I hope that noble Lords opposite feel that I have demonstrated that. This has been a good debate. It has been a long debate, and I particularly enjoyed the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. I welcome him to these debates. I know that he takes a slightly different view to his noble friend Lord Knight, and there is also an honourable and noble tradition on that in the House of Lords.
	Both these amendments ask us to wait, and that is the fundamental message I got from the Labour Party throughout what has been a very long Committee day. It is, "Do not be hasty"-well, we could not be accused of being overly hasty these past few hours-and "Do not make the change in the House of Commons to 600". I believe that there is a majority in this House to make that reduction, and I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Lord Knight of Weymouth: We have had an excellent debate, and I do not want to delay the House for very long. It was significant that we heard from many noble Lords who are not the usual suspects in this Committee. I pay tribute to the usual suspects because we have had many more taking an active part in this Committee than we normally do in Bills that come through at any time of day in this House. It is good to hear some new voices, particularly after such a long period of time.
	I also felt that the debate proved the first law of Lords reform: the more detailed the proposals, the more likely you are to lose support. That was certainly the case with my speech, which had very little support indeed. In fact, it was a great relief when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, stood up and started with the immortal words, "I agree with Lord Knight of Weymouth". He then went on to disagree with me, and my noble friend Lady Sherlock did much the same, but occasionally there was a smattering of support for my particularly ingenious solution to Lords reform.
	I shall not comment on the many excellent speeches-which is a shame because they came from Members of the House who I admire the most, including my sponsor, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam-but I should like to comment on three matters. First, there was a point when the excellent debate got bogged down by a tetchy discussion when the noble Lord, Lord McNally, came in. We were distracted and discussed the nature of the proceedings of the Bill rather than the amendments. It is a huge shame that the offer of negotiation now from the Opposition is being rejected. The opportunity was offered when we voted the last time on the House resuming. I hope that very soon the offer for serious negotiations will be taken up and that we will not have many more protracted evenings going on into the following day.
	Secondly, in the second speech of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said that, in essence, my amendment was saying "not yet". By some remarkable sleight of hand we seem to have a Session that will now last, virtually, until the Olympics. With some kind of Olympian effort, it may be possible for someone with the expertise and brains of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others who have been dwelling on this subject for some time, to come up with a solution and achieve reform. However, given the comments that we have just heard from the Leader of the House that we could be debating these matters for some years, none of us is too optimistic.
	Finally, the substance of the amendment concerns the significant linkage between the numbers in your Lordships' House and in the other place. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, was right to say that there is an importance in the order of doing things, and I think we are doing things in the wrong order. For example, if in the end this House is wholly or partially elected, that will increase the number of elected representatives in this country and increase the cost of representation-and those are the two reasons given for Part 2 of the Bill. We may need to return to these issues on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 63YA disagreed.
	Amendment 63YB not moved.
	Amendment 63YC
	 Moved by Lord Grocott
	63YC: Clause 11, page 9, line 18, leave out "600" and insert a "maximum of 650 and at each boundary redistribution the number of constituencies shall be rounded down"

Lord Grocott: My Lords, this will be the last amendment before we need to conclude the proceedings of this day's Committee as a courtesy-the House would expect no less-to the three new Members who are being introduced today. That may be relevant to the discussions that we have just had but, in view of the procedure that quite properly has to be observed, it would be quite wrong if we went on very much longer.
	This is a simple amendment. It follows on from the discussions that we have just had because, believe it or not, it is an attempt to compromise; it is an attempt to meet one of the objections that the Front Bench opposite has raised to those of us who are keen for the House of Commons to remain at about 650 Members.
	The position is, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, in particular, said, one of the problems with every redistribution is that figures get rounded up and the House gets larger and larger. I have already said that I strongly support a House of 650. I have not liked having to be here right through the night; it is not a good way of considering such a major constitutional Bill. However, it has had one huge advantage. I need to remind the House that we have been debating most of the night the reasons for the Government's decision to reduce the House of Commons from 650 to 600. It is sometimes only when you have a very long debate that the barren nature of the Government's position is laid bare. They have so far completely failed to explain to the House where the figure of 600 came from. They have completely abandoned their first justification for doing it, which was that it would reduce the costs of democracy. That is what Ministers said time and again, but they do not even attempt that defence for the reduction of MPs any longer and I hope that whoever responds to this debate does not resurrect that argument now, as we have demonstrated conclusively that it does not stand up.
	It was in the later reaches of the night that it became apparent to me, and to any dispassionate person listening to the debates, that the Government could not say in two sentences why it was of such imminent importance that the House of Commons should be reduced to 600 Members. My amendment, which I acknowledge is badly worded, although I drafted it as effectively as I could, says that at the next Boundary Commission-which, I am afraid, we have already decided will be as the Government wish, in that it will come quickly and there will be a short period of consideration for redistribution-the numbers should not be rounded up, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, rightly says they normally are, but should be rounded down. That means that over a period of redistribution, rather than in one great shock, the size of the House of Commons should be slowly reduced.
	I do not like that, and feel strongly that it should be 650. We have been told that somehow or another we need to try to reach agreement on some of these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has left but I was astonished at something he said, which I tried to take down verbatim, when we suggested that there should be compromise. I apologise if I have completely misinterpreted him but he said, "Governments reach compromises only if they lose amendments". I do not object to him not being here at the moment as he has been here a long time, but, if that is what he said, I hope that when he reads Hansard he will rethink that statement. It was certainly never the position of the Labour Government in my time that you seek compromise only if you lose an amendment. You seek compromise all the time, which is what a Committee stage is for, but that has not happened on this Bill. Ministers should say, "We don't like that amendment very much. It may have some good points but let's go away to see if there is anything there". Of course, we reach compromises on ping pong, as and when that arrives.
	I shall not prolong this short amendment. I am saying simply that the Government are not getting all that they want if they do not get a cull of 50 MPs immediately. I am emphatically not getting all that I want, but this is something of a compromise. I hope that we might get something from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in the spirit in which it is offered.

Lord Bach: My Lords, as ever, my noble friend Lord Grocott has come forward with an ingenious plan that the Government should consider carefully. It is a constructive proposal which, as he said, seeks to tackle one of the central complaints that have been made about the current rules for drawing constituency boundaries. That complaint is that the rules have the potential to give rise to a ratchet effect, causing the total number of constituencies to increase with each review.
	We have heard that the size of the House of Commons has remained broadly stable since 1983 at around 650. None the less, we accept that the interplay between some of the existing rules for drawing boundaries could cause an upward trend. This was highlighted by an important 1986-87 Select Committee report, which is now quite ancient but still important, by the Home Affairs Select Committee on the rules for drawing parliamentary boundaries. It noted:
	"The consequences of the application of Rules 5 and 6 is that whenever seats are awarded under those Rules above a review area's entitlement on the basis of the electoral quota alone the number of constituencies recommended will be greater than the previous total. These new, higher, totals will in turn be used as divisors for calculating the electoral quotas at the next general review. At that review Rules 5 and 6 will again operate, so that the tendency for the numbers of seats to increase will be increasingly cumulative".
	My noble friend's amendment would address that problem by capping the House of Commons at a maximum membership of 650 and would place a downward pressure on the number of constituencies created by future reviews, by stipulating that the numbers must always be rounded down. There are some attractions to the amendment and we think it to be much preferable to the rather rigid and ill considered proposals to fix the Commons at exactly 600 seats.
	First, the amendment starts from the basis that 650 is a more appropriate size for the membership of the other place. The Government believe that there should be a significant departure from that position and that 600 seats would be the optimum size of the other place. However, at the risk of repeating what has been said, the Government have so far failed to advance any compelling evidence to support that position.
	Secondly, the amendment would provide the Boundary Commission with an element of flexibility in doing its calculations, albeit in one direction. It does not repeat the folly of the Government who, by fixing the House of Commons at an exact number, will make the task of the Boundary Commissions very difficult, not just in the next review but in the review that will follow. In any event, the Committee knows that we believe that it is wrong in principle for Parliament to set the exact figure.
	We see advantages in my noble friend's amendment. However, we on the Front Bench tabled yesterday-or perhaps I should say today; it was about 24 hours ago-Amendment 58A which is a better model for addressing the same problem. I remind the Committee that our amendment would commence the process of drawing boundaries by establishing an electoral quota through the method of a fixed divisor and be based on an assumption of a House of Commons of 650 Members. The advantage is that that would anchor the House of Commons at approximately 650 Members, but allow for a small variation above or below that figure, depending on the mathematical rounding associated with the special exemptions, including certain seats in Northern Ireland-an issue which we will no doubt consider in future amendments. That was the preferred method recommended, on the advice of the Boundary Commissions, in the Home Affairs Committee report to which I referred.
	On this side, we think that my noble friend's amendment is an alternative to our proposal and is certainly one which the Government should certainly take away to consider and see if it meets their requirements.

Lord McNally: My Lords, in introducing the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, reminded us that three new Peers will be introduced at 2.15 pm. I wonder whether the House authorities have checked whether they have been watching the television overnight and are indeed on their way. All I would say to them is that there is still time.
	As has just been pointed out, this amendment seeks to keep the number of Members in the House of Commons at 650 for the 2013 boundary review. Like our proposals, it attempts to address the fact that has been recognised on all sides of the House that there has been a tendency for successive boundary reviews to increase numbers of constituencies at every general review. They have been increased only by a small amount, but nevertheless that constitutes upward pressure. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has put forward a plan that I will not describe as ingenious as we fear that, if it were adopted, it would take perhaps 50 years to get down to the target level in this Bill of 600 as it is not entirely clear how the process of rounding down would function.
	The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that we had abandoned the claim that our objective is cost saving. However, I was present on at least three occasions during the night when we pointed out that our measures would result in cost savings. They would not be large but they would certainly not be trivial, as noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber claimed. Therefore, we have not lost the objective of saving public money but, as I have said so often, we are basically motivated by the objective of getting fair votes in fairly drawn constituencies. Although we have listened to what the noble Lord said, we tend to follow the view of the secretary of the Boundary Commission for Scotland on moving the number in the Commons downwards. He has said:
	"I don't think there would be any particular advantage in doing it incrementally. If you want to make the change, then get it over with".
	We do not see an advantage in making these reductions incrementally and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I have already said that I have no intention of going beyond 1 pm on this. Should I wish to test the opinion of the House, that would take us beyond that time, so I recognise the constraint within which I am operating. I am not surprised but disappointed with the response, although it was made in an emollient way so perhaps I am being over-hopeful in thinking that we could get some movement on this.

Lord McNally: I was especially chosen to answer this amendment to ensure that it was responded to in an emollient way.

Lord Grocott: I suggest that the noble Lord still needs a bit of practice in the art of emollient speaking but it is a start. However, I simply cannot sit down without saying one sentence about the costs. The Government's figures claim that culling 50 MPs would save in the order of £12 million. We know that we have to have an accelerated Boundary Commission-that is completely unnecessary in my view-which, if previous Boundary Commissions are anything to go by, would cost more than £12 million, so there certainly will not be any immediate saving. Indeed, there will be an immediate cost. Thereafter, Boundary Commissions will take place with at least twice the frequency than has been the case in the past for no obvious good reason that I have yet discerned. Therefore, there will be an ongoing cost to the Boundary Commission as there will be an ongoing saving. But the best way to save money that I can recommend to the Government-I leave the Government with this thought as I withdraw the amendment-is, why not save £85 million by scrapping the referendum on the alternative vote?
	Amendment 63YC withdrawn.
	Amendment 63ZA not moved.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I will wait; I think that it will be preferable for the usual channels to be in position for this moment. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
	House resumed.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn. It may be helpful if I confirm that the House will sit today at 2.15 pm for introductions and Oral Questions. The intention is then to proceed with the 10th day in Committee on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, as was indicated in the House of Lords Business. Noble Lords may wish to be aware that when we return to the PVSC Bill after Oral Questions, we will continue to use the revised ninth Marshalled List. Clearly, it is to the advantage of the House and the organisation that we do not seek to do any reprint at the expense of the taxpayer.
	I should also make it clear that we will not proceed with the seventh day in Committee on the Public Bodies Bill, which had been scheduled for this afternoon. In discussion with usual channels, there is a conversation to be had about the time of ending today. It will of course depend on progress of business, but it is not anticipated that the House will go until as long as 10 pm. I know that usual channels are keen to see if it is possible to rise around a dinner hour which is yet to be determined.

House adjourned at 12.52 pm.